


This Could Be Messy

by Chlexcer



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5775286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chlexcer/pseuds/Chlexcer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do Kyungsoo was a successful yet kind of lonely twenty-six year old chef when Kim Jongin, a nineteen year old dance student with a dazzling smile, moved into the apartment across from his along with his best friend and his dog. The building’s number one rule explicitly forbids pets, but Kyungsoo doesn’t think much about ignoring the building’s rules if it means keeping Jongin there. (Kaisoo, chaptered, neighbors!AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Alanis Morisette's song, [Hands Clean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtcdhpHoSe8), which I really recommend you listen to/read the lyrics~  
> I really hope you like it! Comments of any kind are greatly appreciated!  
> Find me in Tumblr @Chlexcer !!

Prologue

The slightly sour smell of kimchi invaded every inch of the room despite the window being wide open, but Kyungsoo had gotten used to it many years ago. It was perhaps during his third year in the culinary academy (from which he had graduated with honors a little over three years ago) that his nose acquired what his professors had called a ‘special sensibility’ that allowed him to block out certain background smells that would always be present in the kitchen –such as the smell of kimchi or freshly made rice—, and pick up on others that required attention –like fungi on cheese or perhaps a strawberry that was starting to embitter.

The steam kept coming in whirls from the large pot on the stove as the short man kept mixing the ingredients of his signature kimchi-jjigae, which only added to the humid heat of a typical late July afternoon and had tiny beads of sweat forming on his brow and nape, just below the ending of his hairline. He usually kept his black hair short and neatly cut precisely to avoid the sweat that was naturally caused by working in steamy kitchens all the time, but the ventilation system of the kitchen in his old apartment was definitely incomparable to the modern stoves used in the hotel’s restaurant he worked at, and it became painfully obvious by the sixth time he had to press a paper towel to his forehead to prevent new beads of sweat from appearing –which, obviously, didn’t work.

Do Kyungsoo was happy, all in all. He had his own apartment in the third floor of a nice even if a little old building, he had found a job doing what he enjoyed the most when he was still fresh out school (as nothing less than a cook in the restaurant of a four-star hotel in Gangnam), and he made enough money with his job that he had been able to buy himself a car he seldom used and a smart TV just a year and a half later. The only thing he lacked, at least according to his best friend Junmyeon (who may or may not have helped Kyungsoo when they were still in school by helping him get in contact with the owners of the hotel, a.k.a., his own family), was another person to share all his achievements with; “some girl or guy you can cook for, you know? Something like another half,” had been his exact words.

Kyungsoo simply told Junmyeon that he had listened to far too many ballads during his youth to even dare to say something as cheesy as that (but as he looked down at the reddish stew that kept on spewing steam like a railway engine –far too much for a single person to eat in a single sitting— he couldn’t help but think his friend was at least a little bit right).

A loud noise coming from the other side of the kitchen wall called his attention. It was a loud thump immediately followed by the clinking of metal against ceramic and a muffled groan. Kyungsoo nearly panicked during a few seconds, torn between the equally as strong urges of being a decent human being and going to check on whoever had fallen down on the building hallway and the one of being a responsible cook and not taking his eyes off the steaming pot. In the end, human decency won over kitchen ethics, and after turning the power of the stove burner to the minimum and cleaning his –sweaty— palms on his red apron, he made his way to the hallway outside of his apartment.

He wasn’t surprised when he found old and slightly rusty pots and pans all over the tiles of the hallway. It did surprise him, however, to find the door to the apartment in front of his own open wide revealing a few cardboard boxes and an old, ratty sofa in the middle of an otherwise empty living room. His old neighbors –or rather, neighbor, since what had previously been a young married couple had become a lonely divorced woman in less than a year— had left months ago and nobody had moved into the apartment after in that time.

The second thing that surprised him was the guy (Kyungsoo couldn’t really tell whether he was a boy or a man) that was holding a broken, empty cardboard box that had the word ‘kitchen’ written in black marker across. The first thing Kyungsoo noticed was that said guy had a really handsome face even if it was twisted into what was one half a grimace of pain and the other half a pout of self-commiseration. Kyungsoo’s eyes quickly took in bronze skin, thick lips that were made even thicker by the pout they were currently performing, and the sharp angles of strong cheekbones and jawline, before he finally made his presence known by clearing his throat.

“Uhm, are you alright?” The guy‘s eyes were suddenly on him and Kyungsoo thought that he looked more boyish than he had initially thought, even if he was several inches taller than him. His eyes were deep shade of chocolate brown under heavy eyelids, and Kyungsoo suddenly felt a little self-conscious under the pair of eyes that were looking at him, suddenly too aware of his fuzzy house slippers and the red cooking apron with the words ’Hot stuff coming through’ written across his torso (courtesy of his ex-boyfriend Chanyeol as a gag-present for his twenty-second birthday). “I heard a loud noise and I got a bit preoccupied—are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”

The guy just shook his head, though the way he rubbed at his elbow –which, Kyungsoo noticed, had gotten scraped— showed he was just being polite. “I’m okay, I just didn’t see the last step of the stairs and ended up dropping everything…” He looked at Kyungsoo, and the shorter man didn’t miss the quick glance the guy gave to his cooking apron. Kyungsoo couldn’t have missed it because he smiled a little to himself at the same time his eyes fell on the tacky white words written on his chest. “I’m sorry I interrupted you. Do you, uhm… Do you live here?”

The main reason Kyungsoo didn’t answer with something mean and sarcastic was that he could tell that the kid didn’t seem too experienced in interacting with people in sloppy lazy-day-in clothes, or adults, for that matter. (The other reasons had more to do with the prospect of having a cute neighbor and the desire to cause a somewhat good first impression)

He attempted to smile gently at him, and he was a little surprised by how natural it felt. “Yes. My name is Do Kyungsoo, and it looks like we will be neighbors?”

The younger man nodded at him before bowing his head deeply at him. Kyungsoo appreciated his politeness. “I’m Kim Jongin, and yes we will! Nice to meet you, Kyungsoo-ssi.”

Kyungsoo was yet again surprised at himself by the chuckle that escaped his lips when he noticed the other boy had a slight accent he tried to dissimulate, a dead giveaway that he wasn’t from Seoul. He was cute. “Just ‘hyung’ is okay. Do you need help with that, Jongin?” The shorter man pointed vaguely at the pans and pots that were scattered over the tiles of the hallway, but before the younger could give any answer to him he bent down and started picking up the utensils in his arms.

“Really? You don’t have to bother, though…! It was my fault I tripped, you don’t have to…!” Jongin was quick to bend down to pick up the few pans pots that Kyungsoo hadn’t been able to carry and set them under his broken-cardboard-box-free arm.

Just as Kyungsoo was about to tell Jongin not to worry about it, another boy around Jongin’s age appeared in the staircase. He was only carrying a box that said ‘games’ on it and his hair was platinum blond, and while Kyungsoo would normally find such a hairstyle weird, he thought it really suited him.

“What are you doing on the floor, Jongin-ah?” The blond’s voice was slightly nasal, and the sound of it had Kyungsoo looking up at its owner and Jongin nearly falling over in surprise at the suddenness of it. Kyungsoo saw the other guy –who was even taller than Jongin, to Kyungsoo’s dismay— widen his eyes in surprise when he noticed the elder’s presence and bowing his head respectfully at him as greeting. “Oh! Hello. I’m Oh Sehun, we’re just moving in… Is my friend causing trouble?”

There was a hint of harmless mischief in the slight smirk that the blond shot at Jongin, but it went over Kyungsoo’s head as he tried to balance the pans and pots he had just picked up from the floor. “Not really, I was just helping him out— I’m Do Kyungsoo, and I live on the apartment across from you.”

Jongin interrupted Sehun’s polite ‘nice to meet you’ by promptly depositing the few pans he had picked up over the closed box that his friend was carrying. “I tripped on the last step of the stairs and sent everything flying all over the place, and I even scraped my elbow.” There was an evident pout in Jongin’s voice, which Kyungsoo got to see once the younger boy with fluffy brown hair turned towards him and gestured for him to hand the pots he had crowded in his arms back to him. He carefully handed the utensils back to him, and he heard Sehun snort behind Jongin as he headed towards the open door of their own apartment.

“But hey, at least you didn’t sprain it or break it! That would be the end of your career, and it hasn’t even started yet!”

The blond’s voice got lost as he took the box and the pans that were placed haphazardly on top of the box inside of his apartment, leaving Jongin and Kyungsoo alone again. The pout had disappeared from the former’s lips and had been replaced by a grateful smile. “Thank you so much for helping me pick this mess up. I should help Sehun bring the rest of the stuff in, after I put all of this inside— I hope we can get along well as neighbors!”

For the third time, Kyungsoo was surprised by how easily he returned Jongin’s smile. While he was a happy man, all things considered, he wasn’t one for smiling a lot, and his facial muscles probably weren’t very used to smiling often. “I hope so, too.”

The blond stepped out of the apartment with his hands free, and he patted Jongin on the shoulder as he walked past him, probably to wordlessly demand his friend’s attention, before going down the staircase again.

After one last smile –sheepish but still pretty dashing, in Kyungsoo’s opinion— Jongin made his way into the apartment across from Kyungsoo’s.

A quick sniff of the air in the hallway made him remember the kimchi-jjigae that he had been cooking not even ten minutes ago, and before he had the chance to run into any of his two new neighbors he hurried back inside of his apartment and into his beloved kitchen.

Luckily, the stew hadn’t been ruined despite the unusual distraction he had encountered.

As he added the slices of tofu on top of the dish as it was getting cooked he could hear voices and laughter he hadn’t heard before coming from the hall across from the wall of the kitchen, probably because he hadn’t been paying enough attention. He hoped the two new boys wouldn’t be too noisy during the night; from what Kyungsoo had been able to tell from his brief exchange with his new neighbors, they weren’t related (though that bit was obvious just by looking at them), they didn’t have careers, and all their pans and pots looked like they had gone to war a couple of times.

Kyungsoo calculated that since they were only getting started with college, they should’ve been around eighteen or nineteen years old. He had to stop his train of thought when he realized that it had started wondering about the kind of relationship that probably existed between the two boys, because guys don’t tend to move in and live with other guys, just the two of them, right? Not unless they really like each other, he thought. But then again, the rent in the building wasn’t particularly cheap, and Kyungsoo knew because he had spent his first year in his apartment renting it until he was able to offer a good enough amount to the previous owner to convince him of letting him buy it. And both boys had an accented way of speaking that showed they weren’t from the city…

His mind was working at the same pace as the hand that he was using to stir and mix the seasoning he had just added to the stew despite the inner voice that reprimanding him for his unnecessary nosiness, when all of a sudden he heard the indistinctive sound of a bark coming from the other side of the wall followed by muffled shushing noises and, finally, by the sound of a door being closed.

Kyungsoo blinked a few times, remembering that the very first rule of the building was that pets like cats and dogs were forbidden.

Well, he thought, if I could train my nose to pick on certain smells and not on others, then I can do the same with my ears and start my training by pretending I didn’t hear that.


	2. Old Locks

Less than a week later, Kyungsoo had forgotten all about his new across-the-hall neighbors and their (illegitimately owned) dog.

He usually left for work at ten in the morning so he could get to the hotel he worked at in Gangnam at around eleven. What followed then were two hectic hours of supervising the making of the main courses and side dishes of the hotel restaurant’s lunchtime buffet, a forty-five-minute-long break where he would eat his lunch, and six more hours of regular cooking at the restaurant, most of which were incredibly dull until dinner time came along, requiring more agility and versatility from the chefs. Kyungsoo liked that part best, but his shift ended at eight (unless there was some special event that required him to work overtime such as Valentine’s Day or Christmas dinners), and even if he thoroughly enjoyed his job, he wasn’t one to stick around after he had worked his share.

He usually made it back to his apartment at around nine thirty after having showered the smell of food off his body and hair in the staff’s bathroom of the hotel. Sometimes, Junmyeon would call him up a few minutes after he was done with work and make plans for him –which, more often than not, consisted in going to their favorite bar with their group of friends. Chanyeol, his ex-boyfriend, was also a part of that group of friends, and once upon a time, after the two had broken up more than two years ago, Kyungsoo had been afraid their break-up would affect the group. It hadn’t, and Kyungsoo often found himself looking forward to such gatherings even if they always implied: a) overpriced drinks that viciously murdered his pocket money, b) a really, really talkative drunk Byun Baekhyun (who was currently finishing his Master’s Degree in Physics, so he tended to talk about scientific stuff nobody but himself understood), and c) driving said really, really talkative Byun Baekhyun home because his boyfriend Yifan lived all the way in Guangzhou half of the year, and because Minseok, Junmyeon, Yixing, Jongdae, and Chanyeol lived even further away from him than Kyungsoo did, anyway, so he didn’t really have a choice.

The memories of his very cute and very young new neighbor (and his friend and dog) soon faded against the overwhelming background of a routine that had been going for more than two years where, while nothing had been particularly unpleasant, nothing had been exceptional or remarkable either (save for a few specific episodes, like the day he got promoted to lunch buffet supervisor, or the night Minseok announced his long-time Chinese girlfriend, Lu Hua, had proposed to him, as well as their wedding mere months later). He wasn’t home all that often during the day, anyway, so he had no more reasons to remember than he had to forget.

It wasn’t until he had finished climbing the stairs to the third floor a week later, body tired after a day of work, that he remembered both, the fact that he had new neighbors, and the incident with the pots and pans that had happened the week before.

The cute, bronzed-skin guy was there, clad in simple grey sweatpants and a slightly oversized hoodie that seemed a little too warm for the summer night, with a plastic bag from the nearest mart dangling on his elbow, fighting against the lock of his apartment door that apparently (and judging by the force with which he was twisting his keys inside the lock) wouldn’t open. Kyungsoo also remembered as he watched the younger man struggle with his apartment door that he didn’t even remember the guy’s name and how was he supposed to start a proper conversation if he doesn’t remember the other person’s name?

“Stupid, old, fucking door— come on!” The guy hit his fist against the flat, wooden surface of the door, which caused the brown poodle that had been calmly sitting by its owner’s feet (and which Kyungsoo had totally overlooked until then) to jump, startled.

“Everything okay?” Kyungsoo asked, a little hesitantly. It all felt very déjà-vu when the younger looked at him with a mixture of what looked like surprise and embarrassment.

“Kyungsoo-hyung! Hi— I’m just… I can’t seem to open the door, for some reason, and I’ve been trying for the last five minutes, but it just won’t give…”

Instead of annoyance, the feeling Kyungsoo felt spreading through him was amusement. He was reminded of his first weeks after he had moved into his own apartment and he had to learn to deal with all the quirks that inevitably came with old apartment buildings, one of them being tricky, difficult locks in old doors (he ended up changing the lock altogether once he had made enough money to do so). However, he noted how the cute bronzed-skin, caramel-coated-voiced guy had been able to remember his own name and he felt kind of like the shitty neighbor he probably was. 

“Well… Mine used to only work by turning the key to the left a little bit and then to the right, all the way.”

The other guy seemed to pout a little at the suggestion offered by Kyungsoo, but he attempted to do it nonetheless, though the short man noticed it was a half-hearted attempt. “I think I already tried doing something like that…”

Kyungsoo hummed as he approached the younger, noticing just how much taller he was than him when they stood side by side, making the mental note to not let his neighbor find out he couldn’t remember his name. “Do you mind if I try?”

The Slowpoke keychain the other handed him (Kyungsoo knew his Pokémon perfectly until the third generation, thank you very much) was warm and a little sweaty, most likely from all the unsuccessful attempts at unlocking the door, and the four keys that remained hanging from it made a jingling noise as Kyungsoo shoved the one key that the younger had separated for him into the keyhole.

After a few turns he was finally able to unlock the door, and he handed back the keys to his surprised (but perfectly handsome regardless) neighbor. He smiled up at him, amused by the surprise in his sleepy eyes. “There. It’s in awful condition, though, so I suggest changing the lock altogether. You should probably call a locksmith if you don’t want to have to deal with this every day… That’s what I did, at least.”

“I should, shouldn’t I? I guess I’ll have to look for one in the area… Thank you so much for helping me, though…! Really, you have no idea how much time I spent fighting against this stupid door…” The guy shook his head, and Kyungsoo saw his grip on the dog’s leash grow stronger as the pup attempted to rush inside the apartment once it noticed the door was finally open.

“I think I have a bunch of useful phone numbers I can give to you. I’ve had trouble with way more things than just the lock of my door, so I could give them to you so you know what to do and who to call when, I don’t know, the water of your toilet comes out boiling hot.”

The other guy laughed, slight wrinkles appearing below his eyes. “What the…? Has that really happened to you?”

Kyungsoo shook his head, his smile of amusement spreading even wider on his lips. Yixing said it made his mouth look like a heart whenever he smiled like that. “Not to me, but to the old lady in the fifth. But I did have plenty of problems with electricity, to the point where I had to replace every single outlet because my new rice cooker nearly started a fire.”

Kyungsoo saw the taller guy chuckle softly and then nod, though a bright smile was still adorning his face. “It sounds tough, I’m glad you worked it out in the end. And, uhm… I’d really appreciate it if you could give me those phone numbers, hyung. To be prepared, at least, if something happens. I never really imagined I would end up living in such an old building when I thought about coming to Seoul. I thought it was nothing but skyscrapers, modern lofts, and stuff… But here I am”

Kyungsoo shrugged, remembering how he had had the suspicion that his new neighbor wasn’t from the city. He had been right, apparently. “Here you are, indeed. But don’t worry, it’s really nice here, all in all. I think you’ll end up loving it,” the other guy’s smile grew a little wider, revealing his teeth, and even if Kyungsoo thought it was adorable he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “even if dogs aren’t allowed here.”

Indeed, the taller guy’s face fell, and Kyungsoo saw him shoot his dog a little look of anxiety. “I-I’m… I know pets are forbidden, but I couldn’t just leave Monggu back home, you know? And he’s a nice dog, too! In fact, he’s way too lazy to be destructive or loud, and he hardly ever barks…!”

Kyungsoo chuckled softly and waved his hand dismissively at his neighbor. “It’s fine by me, really. I won’t tell on you, so don’t worry. I like dogs too, actually…” The younger pretty much sighed in relief at Kyungsoo’s words, but he laughed when he added, “But you can’t just stand with it in the middle of the hall if you want to keep him a secret, you know?”

“Okay, got it. But in my defense it was the door’s fault that I was standing here with him in the first place.”

“All the more reason to get your lock fixed, then. Speaking of which, make sure you drop by later today by my apartment so I can give you a copy of my list of useful phone numbers, okay?” Kyungsoo didn’t even stop to think about the fact that he had just told a guy who was as good as a stranger and whose name he still couldn’t remember to drop by his apartment when he was one of the most private people in the world, at least according to most of his friends.

His neighbor nodded at him, though, flashing his dazzling grin at him yet again. “Okay. And, really, thank you so much, hyung! I’ll see you later, I guess?”

Kyungsoo nodded at his neighbor in return and he waited for the boy and his dog to disappear behind the old wooden door with the numbers ‘301’ hanging upon it before going into his own apartment with the numbers ‘302’ written on his door.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Kyungsoo’s cute across-the-hall neighbor didn’t show up later that night like he had said he would.

The following morning, however, when Kyungsoo was eating breakfast after having already showered and dressed for work, there was a short series of soft rhythmical knocks on the door, so Kyungsoo interrupted his morning routine to greet whoever thought it was remotely decent to knock on someone’s door before nine thirty in the morning (granted, it wasn’t early at all, but Kyungsoo loved his morning routine and an unexpected visitor kind of threw him off his groove).

Whatever he had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t his new neighbor’s handsome face, with his strong features, his thick lips, and his hooded, extremely sleepy eyes. He seemed like he had already showered, if his wet dark brown hair was anything to go by, and his outfit choice was less sloppy than the one he had seen him wearing the night before; in fact, he looked pretty dressed up. It was certainly a nice view, Kyungsoo thought in the back of his mind, but it became even nicer when the taller guy shot a sleepy smile down at him.

“Hi, it’s Jongin. You know, from 301? I’m, uh, I’m sorry I didn’t come last night, you know, to get the useful phone numbers you told me about? But my roommate, Sehun, he lured me into watching a movie with him and I kind of fell asleep halfway through it, so… I-If this is inconvenient to you I can come back in the evening, if you want!”

Kyungsoo wasn’t slow in the morning, he really wasn’t, but his mind had gotten stuck in his neighbor’s first few words, making the rest of his sentence sound like gibberish to his ears. Jongin. So that was his name. He made sure to engrain it in his memory.

“Huh? Jongin?” The taller nodded almost expectantly. Only then Kyungsoo realized what he was there for. “Oh! You’re here for the phone numbers. Yes, come in.”

Jongin flashed another blinding smile at Kyungsoo before he bowed his head and made it inside his apartment, slipping his shoes off easily. Kyungsoo watched him curiously, and as he guided him over to the kitchen he asked, “Isn’t it too early for you to be up and about during the summer? Do you go to summer school, or something like that?”

Jongin shook his head, and Kyungsoo noticed how the younger’s whole face seemed to light up when the topic was brought up. He had to look away to take the magnetic notepad he had stuck to his fridge in which he wrote down important things, such as shopping-lists, new recipes he still wanted to try, and useful phone numbers, all of which he had written down in a single page of the notepad.

“No. I’ll be starting school on August, actually— today I just have to go to the academy to finish the last parts of the enrollment, paying the tuition, and stuff like that.”

Kyungsoo looked up from the notepad when he noticed the excitement in the other’s voice, and he couldn’t help but smile when he noticed the grin Jongin was sporting even if he was standing a little awkwardly on the other side of the island counter, his hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. He looked somewhat younger than he had during their previous encounters, Kyungsoo noted. “Really? That’s amazing, Jongin! What are you going to study?”

“It’s a liberal arts academy, actually. I’m going to study dance,” the smile on the younger’s face seemed a little sheepish, but Kyungsoo could tell that he was nothing but proud. It was certainly an unusual career, in Kyungsoo’s opinion, but his own family and many of his friends had thought the same about his dream of becoming a chef, and he certainly knew what it felt like to be criticized by your non-traditional professional decisions.

“Dance? That’s really incredible! You must be really good at dancing if you want to make it your career, though.” Kyungsoo smiled at Jongin as he went through the pages of the notepad to find the list he had promised to give to the younger.

“Well, I don’t know if I’m really good, but I passed every audition and I even got a scholarship that covers a part of the tuition— I’ve just been dancing since I was really little, mostly ballet and jazz, and I really don’t see myself as anything else, so… It wasn’t a hard decision to make, to be honest.”

Kyungsoo smiled at Jongin as he finally handed the notepad to Jongin across the counter, open on the page he had been looking for, along with a pen. “That’s amazing, Jongin. Really. I’m sure you’ll do well.”

Jongin nodded eagerly as he took the things Kyungsoo passed him. “Thank you, I really hope so.”

Kyungsoo told Jongin to rip out a blank page from the notepad so he could copy the list, and when he offered his unexpected guest a cup of coffee, he laughed when he saw the younger boy crinkle his nose and make a small grimace even if the way he worded his refusal was perfectly polite. He did accept a glass of milk, though, which he drank as he sat in front of Kyungsoo across the counter while the chef finished his own cup of coffee. They talked for almost ten minutes, and Kyungsoo was surprised by how easy it was to speak to Jongin, who seemed eager to listen to every word he said. Kyungsoo told him about his own experience studying a non-traditional career in a traditional educational environment; he told him about his work at the hotel’s restaurant, about some secret ingredients in every day meals Jongin most likely didn’t know about, and also about the incident with boiling hot water in the toilet that had happened to the old lady in the fifth.

“Good luck today,” Kyungsoo said to Jongin a while later, after the younger had finished both, copying the list of useful phone numbers and the glass of milk the shorter man had offered him. Eventually, he told Kyungsoo he had to go to his future school or else he wouldn’t make it in time for his scheduled appointment.

Jongin flashed a smile in return. “Thanks. You too, hyung!”

Kyungsoo closed the door of his apartment after Jongin left, and he went on with the last bits of his morning routine in a way more rushed pace than he was used to, feeling lighter and warmer than he had in a long, long time.

He didn’t even mind much that he was five minutes late to work.


	3. Hospitality

Kyungsoo didn’t forget about his new across-the-hall neighbors this time.

He couldn’t have, actually, even if he had wanted to. 

The day next to the unexpected (and routine-wrecking) visit Jongin had given him, Kyungsoo ran into Jongin’s roommate –Sehun— in the entrance of the building, and as the two climbed the stairs together the blond thanked him with few words for the list of useful phone numbers he had let the two boys have. He wasn’t very chatty (at least not with him), but then again he wasn’t exactly conversational either, so he was thankful when the younger simply bowed politely and waved goodbye at him as soon as he reached his own door.

On his free day –Thursday—, he had run into Jongin at the local mart. The younger was almost done paying up when Kyungsoo walked into the store, and Kyungsoo noticed him immediately. But before his brain could decide between walking up to him and greeting him or ignoring him and turning away from him, Jongin’s eyes found him. He had a lollipop between his lips and Kyungsoo could see a bag of dog food peeking from inside of his paper bag, and there was something awfully adorable about the combination of those things. They shared a few words –Kyungsoo asked Jongin how it had gone with the bureaucracy at his future school, and Jongin asked Kyungsoo about his work—, but they said goodbye before the conversation became too awkward. That had been the only occasion the two had met that had been more or less normal, and it was funny to Kyungsoo how awkward they had been when they had been normal.

Sometimes, on the moments when Kyungsoo would be at home, he would hear a loud laughter, muffled conversations, or a quiet bark coming from the other side of his bedroom or living room wall –across from which his new neighbors resided. He had gotten used to the constant silence of an unoccupied neighboring apartment, but he found that he didn’t really mind the muffled noises coming from the other side of his wall.

A few weeks passed by and it was suddenly August. The heat of the city was still there, as relentless as it had been during July, but the thick walls of the old building were effective against the humidity and the still high temperatures of Seoul. Kyungsoo had always thought there was something mysterious about old buildings –it was as if they had learnt the comings and goings of the people and the ups and downs of the weather as time passed to the point where they became numb to the changes around them. Baekhyun had once said that old buildings were full of ghosts and that ghosts made temperature go down, and while Jongdae had made fun of Baekhyun for believing such a thing in first place, Kyungsoo thought it could be a possibility too.

The moment he crossed the threshold after a day of work and an exceptionally crowded ride home on the subway, Kyungsoo was welcomed by the always cool air of his old apartment building. Perhaps it was just the relief of finally getting home, he thought as he started making his way up the stairs, the sound of his footsteps bouncing against the walls and creating a small echo.

He wasn’t really surprised when the sight of Jongin sitting on the cool tiles of the hall with his back resting against the wooden door of his apartment welcomed him before he even reached the end of the stairs. The boy’s eyes were closed, his arms were folded over his chest, and he was wearing a single headphone. Kyungsoo wondered what in the world had happened this time.

He cleared his throat.

“Jongin?” His voice was soft as he pronounced the younger’s voice with a questioning tone. He walked up to Jongin and crouched next to him, a little timidly, once he realized the boy was most likely asleep. “Hey.”

After accommodating his bag over his shoulder, Kyungsoo brought a hand to the younger’s shoulder and shook him softly. “Hey, are you alright?”

Jongin’s heavy eyelids suddenly opened up, and his dark eyes met Kyungsoo’s even if the older had tried his best to keep his gaze away from his neighbor’s sleeping face. He was really beautiful, Kyungsoo had never even tried to deny that much, so he couldn’t really help but let his eyes wander across the younger’s beautiful features the split second before the younger had woken up. But while acknowledging someone’s good looks from a distance was pretty much harmless, it was completely different to stare fixatedly at someone you found beautiful when they were unaware of it and then get caught in the act. That was either weirdly romantic or just very creepy. He’s going to think you’re creepy, congratulations.

To his surprise, Jongin simply blinked up at him twice –for some reason he hadn’t been able to look away— before letting his head fall back against the door of his apartment and his eyelids close once again. “I forgot my keys inside so I decided to sleep until Sehun arrives from class…”

Kyungsoo was the one who blinked, a bit dumbfounded by his neighbor’s story and how logical it seemed. “Oh. When does he—?” but all of a sudden he realized this meant that Jongin had also started his own classes and he stopped midsentence, unsure about whether he should ask about that or not.

Jongin continued regardless, a lazy, little smile forming on his lips. “He’s usually home by eleven, his classes end like, quarter to ten. He got the worst schedule; I always finish relatively early.”

“Eleven? But it’s only nine thirty!”

Jongin opened his eyes once again, apparently shocked at Kyungsoo’s statement, and he made a move to swiftly fish his cellphone from inside of the pocket of his sweatpants. He just groaned sleepily when he looked at the screen, most likely checking the time after Kyungsoo had pointed it out. That caused the elder to chuckle softly.

“You know, I have no problem if you want to wait for Sehun in my apartment…? You could watch TV, or something…” Kyungsoo didn’t really know where that suggestion had come from, and his voice had come out a little uncertain as he had worded it, but he wasn’t about to let his neighbor sit on his ass on the floor outside of his own house to wait for his roommate for hours when he had a perfectly comfortable couch and a perfectly functioning flat screen in his own house that would make the wait less boring and unpleasant.

“What? No, no, hyung, you really don’t have to bother, it’s okay—“

Jongin’s eyed had nearly sparkled for a moment at the suggestion, but he had quickly shaken his head at Kyungsoo, which only served to make Kyungsoo more adamant about inviting him over, at least for as long as it was necessary. “If I thought you were going to bother me I wouldn’t even have asked, Jongin. Really, you should come over. I bet you haven’t even had anything to eat in hours.”

The younger sighed softly even if he ended up smiling as he shook his head. Kyungsoo noticed how he seemed to be biting on his lower lip for a brief moment. “You really don’t have to, though.”

“I know. I’m not usually this welcoming, but hey… Do you really expect me to leave you out here? I’m not soulless.” He offered Jongin a smile, which came surprisingly easily. Jongin smiled in return, the same dazzling smile he seemed to sport so often. Kyungsoo was still crouching next to him, though he had inched away the moment Jongin had woken up. He was still close enough to notice little details about his smile –like the way his teeth weren’t as pristinely white as they had seemed when he had seen Jongin smile at him from a longer distance.

“Alright, fine… Thank you.” Jongin’s amused voice and smile gave away how relieved he felt about not having to sit on the cold tiles anymore to wait for his roommate. Kyungsoo waved Jongin off as they stood up, and he didn’t wait for Jongin to collect his sports bag from the floor before opening the door.

The apartment itself was less cool than the halls of the of the old building, but it was still relatively fresh compared to the city streets, and Kyungsoo was thankful for it. He turned on the lights after taking off his shoes, leaving them neatly organized inside of a cabinet by the side of the entrance, and fetching house slippers for Jongin and himself so they could walk inside the apartment freely. 

“So, when did your classes begin?” Kyungsoo smiled, more to himself than at Jongin, as he headed over to the –small and kind of cluttered, but otherwise spotless— kitchen of his apartment. It was a thing he did mindlessly; after working all day with fridges filled to the brim with different things, he had to remind himself often of the things he did have inside of his own fridge at home. There was some leftover rice from breakfast, and there were plenty of vegetables he could prepare nearly effortlessly, he noted.

“Sehun and I? We started last Monday.” He could tell by Jongin’s voice that he had followed him to the kitchen, but he saw through the corner of his eye, as he moved around to find a suitable knife to chop carrots, that the younger stood beside the edge of the island counter, probably unsure about stepping into the kitchen itself or staying in the living area. Kyungsoo thought he saw him flex his fingers nervously. 

“And do you like it so far?” He tried shooting him a smile over his shoulder as he set the cutting board down on the counter. Jongin smiled in return, suddenly less awkward as he turned his body to face Kyungsoo and lean against the counter.

“I love it! Sehun and I only share two classes, but that’s fine because everyone is so nice and friendly…! The professors are great. I’m always tired at the end of the day —I mean; you saw how I fell asleep on the floor—, but it’s really worth the effort… Hold on, what are you cooking for?”

Kyungsoo chuckled softly at the sudden question that interrupted Jongin’s happy rant about his recently started career in dance in college –which he was more than happy listening to—. He simply looked at Jongin with a raised eyebrow, though. “You said you hadn’t eaten before, remember?”

The younger nearly had a fit. “What?! But that doesn’t mean you have to cook for me—! I agreed to staying here until Sehun came here, maybe watch some TV, not to you feeding me, hyung!”

Kyungsoo shrugged, trying his best to keep his face straight even if he thought he would end up caving in and smiling any moment. “Too late, I already started. And anyways, I’m not going to make anything fancy. You can watch TV meanwhile if you want, too. I mean it.”

The shorter noticed how conflicted Jongin looked, so he let a smile make his way to his lips. “Hey, I like cooking, remember? And I was going to cook for myself, anyway. But I’m not going to ask you to stay here while I cook because I know how boring it can get sometimes, and because it kind of bothers me to have people watching me while I cook, at least in my house kitchen. I have plenty of anime DVDs under the TV you can watch meanwhile.”

Kyungsoo almost laughed at how peaked Jongin’s attention seemed when he said that. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

Jongin looked over his shoulder at the flat screen on the living room and the stacked disks on a small wooden shelf beneath it, a little smile playing on his lips, before finally turning around and heading towards it. “It’s not fair for you to be such a cool neighbor-hyung, you know? How am I going to pay all of this back?”

Kyungsoo couldn’t help the snicker that left his lips then even if he gave no answer. He hadn’t thought about getting things in return when he had offered his help at Jongin the past times they had met under unusual circumstances, anyway. 

He heard a loud gasp coming from the living room, then. “You have all of Dragon Ball! And Evangelion! And Inuyasha! We have to marathon these sometime, now that I know you like these too! Sehun always says he can’t watch any anime from before 2005 because he can’t stand the drawing style, but I think he’s just a boring snob…”

Kyungsoo agreed, naturally. He loved those series, and after Jongin had suggested it, he realized he would actually enjoy going through them once again with someone who enjoyed them as much as himself. After a few moments (during which Jongin seemed to figure out perfectly well how to turn on Kyungsoo’s TV set, something Kyungsoo had only managed to do after calling Junmyeon on the phone and asking for help), the first opening theme song of Inuyasha started coming from the speakers, and Kyungsoo found himself smiling as the lyrics flowed effortlessly from his mouth even if it had been years since the last time he had heard it. Why had he stopped watching anime, anyway?

It took Kyungsoo less than an episode of the series Jongin was watching on the living room to finish dinner. He used the extra time to put the leftovers in a plastic container (perhaps Jongin could take it to his roommate Sehun —he figured he must be hungry if he made it home so late at night, and even more so considering his career involved moving around all day long) and to clean the dishes and the utensils he had dirtied in the process.

“You finished already? That was fast…!”, Jongin had exclaimed when Kyungsoo sat on the other side of the couch. He handed Jongin a bowl of food and a pair of chopsticks, shrugging simply.

“Some people might yell at you if you don’t have their dishes ready in less than ten minutes.”

Jongin smiled and chuckled as he accepted the food the elder gave him, taking the bowl and chopsticks in his hands. He looked really tired, his heavy eyelids even heavier over his eyes and making him look more somnolent than usual, Kyungsoo noticed. Jongin asked him if it was okay to play the following episode, to which Kyungsoo nodded energetically with a mouthful of white rice.

An episode and a half later Jongin fell asleep, the side of his face pressed against the backrest of the couch and his mouth slightly open. Kyungsoo had noticed, but he hadn’t had the heart to wake him up (what good would it be if I woke him, anyway? He will most likely fall asleep again, and he still has to wait another half hour for his friend to arrive…). Instead, he finished the third episode of the series before going to the kitchen to clean up the bowls Jongin and he had used to eat their food. It wouldn’t be nice if he watched more episodes with Jongin sleeping.

Kyungsoo had just finished making himself a cup of tea when an R&B song he liked very much started coming from the living room. From where he was sitting on the island counter he saw Jongin waking up, undoubtedly startled, and reaching for his phone in his pocket. The moment he answered it, the music stopped, leaving a strange deafness hanging in the air.

“Hello?”

Kyungsoo could have laughed at the sight of Jongin answering his phone in zombie mode, his eyes still more closed than open even if he had made a move to stand up.

“Sehun? Yeah… No, I’m next door.”

Kyungsoo couldn’t really hear what Sehun was saying, his voice nothing but a subtle buzz, but it wasn’t hard to guess based upon Jongin’s answers. “I forgot my keys inside— Kyungsoo-hyung told me I could wait for you here. But I’m coming over right now.”

Jongin paused and the buzz that was Sehun’s voice through Jongin’s phone sounded deafly once again. Jongin seemed to interrupt him. “So what if I was sleeping just now? I fell asleep when we were watching anime— Inuyasha, why—? Hey! It’s not boring! Ugh. Whatever –I’ll see you in a bit.”

Jongin shoved the phone in his pocket after hanging up, and Kyungsoo thought he looked funny standing in the middle of his living room with such a sleepy expression on his face.

“I should get going… I, uh, I’m sorry I fell asleep.” Jongin looked a bit embarrassed, so Kyungsoo waved a hand dismissively at him. He really didn’t mind, and he had honestly had more fun during their small, unsuccessful Inuyasha marathon than he had had in a while.

“It’s okay, you’re tired.”

Jongin gave him a sheepish little smile as he headed to the entrance of Kyungsoo’s apartment. “I am… The food was delicious, by the way. Thank you so much for letting me stay here meanwhile –I swear it won’t happen again!”

Kyungsoo chuckled and shrugged, and it was hard to keep his honest words from coming out of his mouth. “But if you don’t come by again then how are we going to do our anime marathon? You’re going to have to try to stay awake, though, because we will never end if we only watch one or two episodes every time…”

Jongin’s eyes widened for a moment, and Kyungsoo was momentarily worried he had said something he shouldn’t have. But then Jongin’s face relaxed into a sleepier-than-usual smile. “Right… So, are we going to do it, then?”

Kyungsoo shrugged once again before leaning to pick up Jongin’s sports bag from where he had left it against the shoes cabinet. Perhaps he shouldn’t had been making this sort of plan with a nineteen-year-old boy who was barely starting college towards whom he was starting to develop a little harmless crush on when he himself was a twenty-six-year-old man with a job, a TV he couldn’t figure out half of the time, and a lonely apartment, but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like they couldn’t hang out, anyways –they were neighbors, and they happened to be interested in the same things. Jongin could know those things about him –about his job, about his interests, about what he did in his free time, for example—, but he didn’t have to know that he was gay. He absolutely couldn’t know that Kyungsoo was gay, or else he would blow things out of proportion like his best friend in high school had and cut all contact with him when he had told him. He didn’t want Jongin to be afraid of him –or even worse: to be repulsed by him. “I don’t see why not.”

The younger boy smiled more widely, though it was no less sleepy, as he slipped half-assedly into his sneakers. “Yes! Though we will have to watch episode three again because I missed the last half…”

Kyungsoo chuckled as he handed the bag over to Jongin, who pulled the strap over his shoulder. “Of course, but we won’t do it every single time you fall asleep and miss something. You could try drinking coffee to keep yourself awake, maybe?”

Jongin’s face scrunched up in an expression of disgust, and he even stuck his tongue out for a second. “It tastes like poison, why would I? But I’ll stay awake without caffeine, I promise.”

Kyungsoo nodded once up at him, after opening the door. “I’ll hold you to your promise, then. Good luck at college tomorrow, now go feed your dog.”

Jongin’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “Monggu! If Sehun hasn’t fed him yet, I swear to god—“

The younger turned around and exited Kyungsoo’s apartment to walk the short distance that separated it from his own apartment. Kyungsoo felt warm, even after the boy had left. “Good night.”

Jongin turned around one last time and he waved at Kyungsoo before he knocked on his own door. “Good night, hyung. Thanks again!”

Only after Kyungsoo had already gone to bed, later that night, and was in the hazy state that precedes sleep, he remembered the plastic container with leftover food he had put together for Sehun.


	4. Chanyeol I

Kyungsoo walked into the bar a few minutes after nine thirty on a warm Wednesday of early August. The place was packed with people, and the patrons’ conversations and clinging of glasses mixed pleasantly with the not-too-loud background music. Kyungsoo hadn’t been there in about two weeks; however, he could find his way to their usual table in their usual booth with his eyes closed, regardless of the amount of people in the bar and of the time that had passed since his last visit. His friends and he had been using the very same spot since they were all just a bunch of college kids, after all, so there was something almost automatic in the way Kyungsoo made his way towards it.

He was thankful that his body had somewhat memorized the route towards the table, to be honest, because he was tired and in no mood of taking more steps than necessary to reach his destination. Jongin had come over to his apartment the day before and he had stayed until it had been too late. Just like the first time, Kyungsoo had made a simple (yet undeniably delicious) dinner for Jongin and himself which they ate sitting together on his couch while watching Inuyasha, but unlike the first time, Jongin hadn’t fallen asleep by the third episode they watched, true to his promise of keeping himself awake (without drinking a single drop of coffee, which Kyungsoo found somewhat impressive). Only by the time they reached the ending of episode ten at nearly three thirty in the morning they decided to call it a day and Jongin went to his home across the hall. 

He had had a lot of fun even if he ended up going to bed way later than usual. The anime was okay –perhaps even a little underwhelming compared to the first time he had watched it years ago—, but what he had enjoyed the most had been the moments Jongin and he had spent talking between the episodes. Particularly between episodes five and six, where Jongin had helped him with the dishes while Kyungsoo cleaned the stove and the counters, and between episodes eight and nine, where the two neighbors had gone into the kitchen once again to prepare a cup of coffee and a cup of tea –the former for Kyungsoo and the latter for Jongin. Conversation came way too easily between the two of them, and they had spent at least thirty-three minutes in the kitchen drinking their beverages while they talked about the episode they had just finished watching, about the other strange residents of the building, about one of Jongin’s severe ballet teachers and about the classmates he was slowly starting to befriend, about Kyungsoo’s own friends, and about the time years ago where Kyungsoo had wanted to become a singer but his parents hadn’t supported him. 

Naturally, Kyungsoo was tired after a restless night (a rarity ever since his steady working schedule had provided a steady order to nearly every other aspect of his life), and that tiredness only added to the usual exhaustion of his approximately nine hours of work at the hotel’s restaurant, which showed in his face and in the fact that he didn’t offer much more than a little wave of his hand to his friends sitting around the table, glasses and bottles of beer, soju, and soft drinks messily distributed over the surface. 

“Well, someone’s happy,” Jongdae said with a little smirk as he pushed a bottle of soju and a clean shot glass on the table in front of Kyungsoo. “You look like someone died.”

Kyungsoo shot Jongdae an unamused look, though any potential offense contained in his friend’s words was compensated by the fact that he was offering him alcohol. He wasn’t a heavy drinker by any means, and he certainly wasn’t planning on getting drunk that night, but the slight buzz of a single shot of soju felt just like what he needed after such a long, tiresome day. “Nah, I’m just tired. Didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all…”

Baekhyun immediately seemed to perk up at that, the corners of his lips curving into a smirk. While he served himself a cup of the liquor, Kyungsoo tried to calculate Baekhyun’s state of inebriety, but it was difficult because even if Baekhyun was kind of a lightweight, his friend’s sober and drunk self weren’t too different; the latter was a little more shameless and sometimes also a little bit intellectual, but Baekhyun was already pretty shameless (and clever) while sober. “Oh? Didn’t get much sleep? What is that supposed to mean, Kyungsoo-yah? Anything you haven’t told us? Did you get a new boyfriend after the last time we saw each other, or something?”

Kyungsoo didn’t miss the way Chanyeol looked away while busying himself with a drink to his bottle of beer.

“What? No? It just means that I didn’t get much sleep last night. And I’ve been working all day, too…” Kyungsoo had to stifle a yawn with the back of his hand. 

“Your shift sucks, to be honest.” Minseok said from where he was sitting on the header seat with Lu Hua sitting beside him on a chair they had borrowed from another table, though his girlfriend (or rather, fiancée) was busy chatting away with Yixing in quick Mandarin. The eldest of the group wasn’t drinking, if the single half-filled bottle of ginger ale in front of him was anything to go by, so Kyungsoo guessed he was probably driving. Minseok had graduated from the culinary academy two years before Kyungsoo had, and he also worked at the hotel restaurant, but he only worked the breakfast shift (which kind of made sense since Minseok was a certified pâtissiere and barista). Lu Hua and he had opened a café in Itaewon a few years ago, and that’s what he dedicated himself to the rest of the day. “If we ever begin to serve meals at the café you should quit your job at the hotel and start working for us instead. Our shifts are nicer, and the café is closer to your house, too.”

Kyungsoo chuckled and shook his head, feeling his tiredness begin to slowly diminish thanks to the company of his friends. “Thanks, hyung, but I’ll pass; I really like working at the hotel, you know? And I’m sure Junmyeon-hyung wouldn’t appreciate it if I quit considering he was the one that helped me get the job in first place...”

Junmyeon chuckled beside Kyungsoo and nodded his head as he lowered his Sprite. He wasn’t drinking, either. “True, I wouldn’t. Even if I don’t have anything to say on that matter since I only work in finances.”

Minseok shrugged as he played with the sticker of his ginger ale bottle, which had begun to peel off due to the drops of condensation that had gathered on the surface of the bottle, a small smile on his lips. “It was worth the shot.”

Jongdae intervened, then, pushing his empty glass in front of Baekhyun, who was in the middle of pouring himself a shot of soju. “And speaking of shots… Pour me one, will you, Baekhyun-ah?”

 

The evening progressed comfortably like that, between shots of soju, beer, and soft drinks. It had been about two weeks since the last time they had been able to gather altogether like this –with the exception of Yifan who was still at Guangzhou and wouldn’t be coming back until the following month— and it was nice to see everyone together at the same time. Kyungsoo was used to seeing Minseok nearly every day, for he arrived to the hotel at the same time Minseok left. He also saw Junmyeon very often and sometimes they even had lunch together, but if it weren’t for this tradition of theirs to get together at least twice a month on the exact same place Kyungsoo knows he wouldn’t see much of the others –even if they were all really active in their Kakao Talk chat group.

Chanyeol had been weird that night, though.

He was usually talkative and loud, his deep voice and explosive laughter resounding in the booth, and the way he moved his limbs erratically whenever he laughed –which was way too often— made everyone around him protect their drinks in case a large hand knocked a glass over –which also happened quite often, though not necessarily because of Chanyeol. 

It had been like that before Kyungsoo and he had started dating, during the almost two years they had been dating, and after they had broken up. But that night he had been pretty much silent the entire evening except for a few little comments here and there. And he had had way too much to drink, which was saying a lot for someone with Chanyeol’s size and Chanyeol’s resistance to alcohol. The tall man had ended up really, really drunk by the end of the night.

It made Kyungsoo worried because even if it was true that they weren’t together anymore, it wasn’t like he had stopped caring about the tall man, and he suspected that something must’ve happened to him and that. Whatever it had been, it that had shaken him quite badly. He knew Chanyeol, he knew he probably wasn’t okay, and that he was definitely too drunk to make it back to his own place in one piece. He didn’t think twice when he offered Chanyeol his couch to crash on that night when they were leaving the bar, to which Chanyeol nodded with a severe expression and dazed eyes, which would have been pretty comical under different circumstances. At that moment, though, it had only been unsettling.

Junmyeon had offered them a ride, and Kyungsoo and he ushered a drunk Chanyeol onto the backseat of an unfamiliar car (“it’s Minho’s new car so be careful,” Junmyeon explained, “he let me borrow it today because mine is in the workshop for the week and he didn’t need it today, anyway”). Kyungsoo climbed in the back as well, just in case the tall man accidentally did something that ruined Junmyeon’s boyfriend’s new car, like puking.

Chanyeol had almost passed out during the ride to Kyungsoo’s old apartment building, and Junmyeon had to help Kyungsoo carry the tall man up the three flights of stairs. Thankfully, Chanyeol wasn’t being as scandalous as he usually was when he was drunk (though, at the same time, that fact was deeply concerning for Kyungsoo).

“Thank you, hyung, but I think I can handle him from now on,” Kyungsoo told Junmyeon once he had managed to open the door of his apartment. Junmyeon had an unsure expression on his face, his brow furrowed.

“Are you sure?” The elder glanced at Chanyeol, who was barely holding himself up and seemed on the verge of collapsing, though the trip up the stairs had seemed to have woken him up.

Kyungsoo had dealt with a drunk Chanyeol many times before, more than he could count with both of his hands, and he had lived to tell the story every single time. Plus, Junmyeon had done more than enough for him already. He simply nodded at the elder. “Hyung, I’ve dealt with him like this plenty of times. It’s been a while, but I think I’ll be fine. Just go home, and tell Minho-hyung I said hi.”

Junmyeon sighed, though he smiled softly at the mention of his boyfriend. “Right. I forget about that sometimes; you know? That you two were together once... It seems like it was so long ago."

Kyungsoo attempted to shrug, though it was a little hard with Chanyeol's weight pressing against him. “It was a long time ago, so I guess I don’t blame you. Sometimes even I forget about it…”

The elder chuckled at that, but it seemed a bit forced. “Right. Well, I guess I’ll just get going, then. Call me if something happens, okay? Really.”

Kyungsoo nodded at Junmyeon, his eyes rolling slightly. Chanyeol was heavy and his breath reeked of alcohol. “I will. Night, hyung.”

Junmyeon seemed to hesitate for a moment before waving his hand in goodbye, turning around, and heading down the stairs. Kyungsoo took a deep breath before pulling Chanyeol into his apartment with him. They had barely reached the living room when he heard Chanyeol mutter the word ‘bathroom’ between short breaths, and so Kyungsoo took the taller man to the bathroom as fast as he could so he could empty his stomach into the sink. He rubbed at his ex-boyfriend’s back as he vomited, large hands holding onto the edges of the toilet like a lifeline, and he also made sure to keep his slightly shaggy brown hair out of his face.

“What in the world happened to you?” Kyungsoo asked, though he really wasn’t expecting an actual answer from Chanyeol. 

The short man helped Chanyeol lie down on the couch a few minutes later, after making him brush his teeth with one of his spare toothbrushes. 

He was surprised when he saw Chanyeol struggling to force words out of his mouth, but he shushed him. “No, don’t worry about it now—just rest, okay? Maybe we can talk tomorrow, when you’re feeling better. I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. Now sleep. But don’t you dare vomit on my couch, okay? Or I’ll beat your ass, I don’t care that you feel bad, okay?”

He was satisfied when he saw Chanyeol nod softly, knowing that it was the most elaborate answer he would get from him in that state. In a matter of seconds, the taller man fell asleep, and only then Kyungsoo went to bed, eternally grateful about the fact that he wouldn’t have to go to work the following morning.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

The next day Kyungsoo woke up to the sound of knocks on his front door. His bedside clock said it was almost nine in the morning, but if he had had to guess just by the way he felt after his misadventures with a drunk Chanyeol the night before, Kyungsoo would’ve said it wasn’t even five A.M. It was the second night in a row where he hadn’t gotten nearly as enough sleep as he would have liked.

He still got up, however, and shuffled over to the front door, rubbing his eyes and fruitlessly trying to comb the mess that had become his hair using his fingers. He spared Chanyeol a look as he walked past the couch, envying the way he seemed to be sleeping peacefully despite the knocking on the door as well as mentally congratulating him for not having made a mess during the night.

When Kyungsoo got on his tip toes to see through the peephole and saw Jongin’s face through the fish-eye lens he felt a little twist in his stomach for a reason he couldn’t point out. He figured it was probably a combination of embarrassment and resignation.

He opened the door even if he knew he looked like a zombie. “Jongin? Morning.”

Kyungsoo saw a toothy grin form on Jongin’s mouth after greeting him. His neighbor looked fresh out of the shower, his hair still slightly wet, clothes crispy clean, and a sports bag thrown over his shoulder. A few seconds later, Kyungsoo also saw when the realization that he had woken him up hit Jongin. “Hi, hyung! Did I wake you—? Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I thought you would be getting ready to go to work at this time…?”

Only then Kyungsoo noticed that Jongin was holding the plastic container in which he had put the food he had sent Sehun just the other day, only it was empty (and perfectly clean, too). Kyungsoo just shook his head. “Thursdays are my free day, remember? And Sundays. But don’t worry about it; what is it?”

“I just—I just wanted to return this to you before going to the academy,” Jongin said kind of sheepishly as he held out the plastic container with both hands at Kyungsoo. “I came by yesterday too but you weren’t home, so I figured I could return it this morning.”

Kyungsoo took the container in his hands, nodding a bit groggily at the younger. “I was out until late, yes— but I’m here now, so… Thank you for returning this.” He was tempted to try giving Jongin a smile, but he couldn’t find the strength to muster it. 

Jongin shook his head, a small smile adorning his lips without a fail. “No, what are you saying? I should be the one thanking you for even bothering in the first place—!” Suddenly Chanyeol groaned, probably disturbed by the noise coming from Kyungsoo’s front door, and Kyungsoo also heard him shift around. Jongin’s eyes focused somewhere behind Kyungsoo, which had the shorter man remembering that Chanyeol (or at least, the mat of brown hair that was the back of his head leaning against the armrest of the couch) could be seen from where Jongin was standing. Kyungsoo felt the pace of his heartbeat pick up, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was nervous about.

Unexpectedly enough, Jongin lowered his voice to a whisper. “Who is that?”

The younger boy seemed honestly curious, and he had pointed behind Kyungsoo with a finger. Kyungsoo swallowed, remembering very well that he had to be careful around people until he had them figured out somehow –at least their views on things like homosexuality—, so he couldn’t be as honest as he would like about Chanyeol’s identity without revealing the fact of his own sexuality to Jongin. When talking about his friends the other night, Kyungsoo had been very careful to leave Chanyeol out.

Kyungsoo lowered his own voice to a whisper to match the volume of Jongin’s voice. “He’s, uh, he’s a friend of mine. He was too drunk to go back to his place last night, so I just brought him here…” 

“Oh… Is he Junmyeon-ssi?” Jongin pressed on. Kyungsoo shook his head. “Baekhyun-ssi…?” Kyungsoo shook his head once again, hoping Jongin would leave for the first time since he had met him a few weeks ago. How had he managed to remember the names of two of his friends was beyond him, though.

“No, he’s… He’s another friend. His name is Chanyeol. Jongin, listen—I’m honestly very tired right now. If you want we can have this conversation later today, or something…”

Jongin’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh! Right—I’m sorry. You probably want to go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you up, hyung, I really didn’t mean it…”

Kyungsoo waved his hand dismissively at that. “It’s fine. Just go to class, or something, or you’re going to be late.” Jongin nodded at him and took a step back, smiling again even if it seemed a bit sheepish. “See ya.”

“Bye, hyung!”

Jongin hadn’t taken two steps when Kyungsoo shut his front door. He hoped he hadn’t been too mean to him.


	5. Chanyeol II

Kyungsoo went back to bed after he had put away the plastic container Jongin had just returned to him in its rightful place and managed to sleep a few more hours.

It was noon by the time he woke up to the telltale sound of somebody working in the kitchen and to the scent of doenjang jjigae and rice flooding his apartment. 

Chanyeol, he remembered in a sleepy state before he had a chance to panic about someone barging into his apartment and making use of his precious kitchen. Chanyeol wasn’t just anyone, and Kyungsoo knew he could be trusted in the kitchen. He had no reason to worry.

The two had met on their first day at the culinary academy, almost eight years ago, though they didn’t have the chance to become friends until much later due to differing study plans (Kyungsoo had specialized in Korean cuisine while Chanyeol had aimed for Western cuisine). They met properly at an elective they took during their seventh semester (‘Advanced Baking’, where Minseok had been their TA) when they were designated as partners for their first assignment: honey cupcakes. 

The teacher had given the students freedom to pick their own partners after that first assignment, but Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had made such a great team that they always ended up choosing each other again.

They ended up falling in love along the way. 

Despite their apparent differences they had a lot of fun together and discovered they had more in common than they thought. It wasn’t too long after that Kyungsoo’s heart started beating faster whenever Chanyeol’s hand brushed against his when they reached for the same ingredient or utensil at the same time.

One day, a few days before the end of the semester when they were both twenty-one years old, Chanyeol kissed Kyungsoo in the empty classroom.

They were together for almost three years, but they broke up because while they still cared deeply for each other, the love between them had cooled down and changed into something more fraternal. It had been very sad, naturally, and it had taken some time for Kyungsoo to get over it, but in the end it had been for the better and no bad feelings had remained between them. In time they fell into a strange sort of friendship where they knew each other extremely well but kept a big-enough distance between them to not interfere with the other’s life. It worked for them and for their group of friends.

Kyungsoo knew Chanyeol was currently working at his family’s Italian restaurant as the head chef, and that the restaurant had become really popular and well-known, so he was really busy with work. Kyungsoo knew Chanyeol had seen some people after they had broken up, first a girl and then another guy. And he was fine with it, really. He was doing okay and Kyungsoo was happy about that fact, just as he knew Chanyeol was happy that he was doing okay as well.

Bringing him to his apartment could probably be considered interfering in Chanyeol’s life, but it hadn’t felt wrong at all. It had felt necessary. He could read Chanyeol like a book, maybe not as well as he had been able to a few years ago, but he knew that something was going on and that whatever it was, Chanyeol was upset about it. 

He was suddenly reminded of how the tall man had attempted to talk to him the previous night when he was tucking him in on his couch so he got up from his bed and made his way to the kitchen, following the delicious smell of the food Chanyeol was making. When he saw the tall brown-haired man standing in his kitchen, casually stirring the soybean soup on the stove, it was a little bit like a déjà-vu. He was still wearing his clothes from the previous evening, which Kyungsoo thought only made the scene before him more bizarre.

“I thought you preferred toast and cereal over rice and soup for breakfast?” Kyungsoo asked, a little surprised by how casual it all felt, as he moved next to Chanyeol to take a look at the soup in the pot. “It smells good. And it looks good, too.”

“I like my traditional breakfast every now and then, too, thank you very much.” Kyungsoo looked up at Chanyeol and noticed he was smiling (he also noticed he looked very hungover, but that was to be expected). His smile faltered as he spoke again, though. “I’m... I'm really sorry about last night… I wanted to make this to apologize, but also to thank you for taking care of me.”

Kyungsoo shrugged as he moved away from Chanyeol again to fill the boiler with water from the tap. “The vomiting was a bit too much, but it’s fine. Junmyeon-hyung gave me a hand, too, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. You never drink as much, though…”

Kyungsoo saw Chanyeol shake his head through the corner of his eye as he turned the boiler on.

“Something happened… Right?” 

The tall man sighed deeply, nodding again. Kyungsoo noticed how he was biting on his lower lip. “Yes.”

Kyungsoo hesitated a little bit before asking again, keeping his voice gentle, “do you want to tell me?” 

Chanyeol turned off the stove, then, and put the lid on the pot of soup he had been stirring. He kept his hands busy when he talked about important stuff to try to seem nonchalant about whatever was bothering him. “It’s my mom… She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped, feeling his throat and his heart constricting at Chanyeol’s words. “W-What…? Oh my God… But she’s so young…! When—?”

“The results from her exams were out yesterday, and my sister, Yura, went to pick them up with her because I couldn’t leave the restaurant… We had all been suspicious that something was wrong with her, though, since around last year. She started mixing words up, losing track of what she was saying, and calling Yura and I the names of her brother and sister. But one day she confessed to me that she couldn’t remember how to make an Excel sheet even if she had made one the day before, and…” Chanyeol had stayed fixed on the same spot while talking, but his knuckles had turned white by the force with which he was holding onto the edge of the counter. 

Kyungsoo was heartbroken, really. Chanyeol’s mother had welcomed him with open arms when Chanyeol told her about their relationship, which was more that could be said about his own parents, who had refused to meet Chanyeol until the two had reached their first anniversary to make sure Kyungsoo was serious about this whole thing and not just doing it out of spite, or something along those lines. She was a strong, sweet, smart woman who had managed to raise two children pretty much on her own and build a restaurant from scratch at the same time. He put one of his hands on Chanyeol’s shoulder, to offer some sort of comfort. 

“Chanyeol…”

But Chanyeol went on. “I really wanted to tell you this, but only you… I mean, at least for now. You knew my mom much more than anybody else, and you should know that she loves you, still. Getting drunk was stupid, but I… I don’t know… I would’ve been too gloomy if I hadn’t drunk, probably?”

“You seemed gloomy all the time to me, to be honest…” Kyungsoo rubbed at Chanyeol’s back gently. “I appreciate you telling me this, honestly… How, uhm… How is she?”

“Well,” Chanyeol said with a sigh, turning around to lean against the edge of the stove. Kyungsoo kept his hand attached to him, knowing Chanyeol needed some sort of anchor at the moment. “She doesn’t want to believe that this is it for her, obviously. But it takes time, you know? The doctor said she still has between two and four years before the cognitive damage becomes severe, and that is sort of a relief because it gives us time to prepare ourselves for whatever happens from now.”

Kyungsoo sighed, feeling pretty shaken himself. He could only imagine how bad Chanyeol was feeling. “Damn, Chanyeol… I… I’m so sorry. I wish I could help you and Yura, and your mom too, somehow…”

The tall man shook his head vehemently at that. “You helped me a lot last night. Picked me up and took care of me when I was acting like an angsty teen and when you really didn’t have to— But, hey, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over this. I just told you because, well... You're you. But that doesn't mean you have to do anything. We’re going to be fine, I know. We just need time to figure stuff out, and it seems we do have that, at least.”

Kyungsoo saw him smile toothily, then, and even if there was sadness in his ex-boyfriend’s large eyes, there was also a glint of something warm and hopeful in them. And Kyungsoo was reminded how much of an optimist Chanyeol had always been and how well it had worked for him. He had always been a little like the sun, never failing to brighten any situation. “Okay… But don’t be stupid and always remember you have friends that can and will help you if you ever feel like it’s too much. That’s what we’re all here for, dumbass; you don’t have to drink yourself into oblivion every night.”

The tips of Chanyeol’s ears seemed to redden a little bit at that. “I won’t. Promise.”

After the water boiled and Kyungsoo had prepared two cups of coffee, the two sat on the island counter of Kyungsoo’s small kitchen to eat brunch. They didn’t talk much, and at moments it could have gotten incredibly awkward, but it probably wasn’t so bad as it could have been, all things considered. They didn’t talk about Chanyeol’s mom again.

After they were done eating (and boy did Chanyeol eat; Kyungsoo had almost forgotten about it), the shorter told Chanyeol that he should take a shower while he cleaned the kitchen up and put the dishes in the dishwasher (he was in no mood of cleaning them manually), to which Chanyeol obliged –not without pointing out the red apron that said ‘Hot stuff coming through’ first, which was hanging on a rack by the side of the fridge.

(“I can’t believe you still have it! I had forgotten all about it!” He had laughed out loud, even wrapping an arm around his stomach as he laughed. Then he smirked at Kyungsoo and the shorter man was already feeling the secondhand embarrassment at whatever Chanyeol was going to say combined with the genuine embarrassment he felt about getting caught still having things from his ex by his ex himself. “I gotta say this, though… It’s still true, hot stuff.”

“Park Chanyeol, if you don’t go shower right now I swear I’ll castrate you and make you eat your own balls.” Chanyeol’s grin widened but he disappeared down the hall of the apartment and inside of the bathroom.)

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

It was only when he heard a knock on the door that Kyungsoo realized he hadn’t dressed up with proper clothes nor had a proper shower yet, and it was way past noon.

He seriously considered pretending he wasn’t home and he went on wiping the counter where Chanyeol and he had eaten a few minutes ago with a humid yet spotless rag, but after a while the knocks repeated themselves and Kyungsoo cursed under his breath as he threw the rag into the sink and made his way to the front door.

He hadn’t looked through the peephole this time, but when he saw Jongin the moment he opened the door he wasn’t surprised in the slightest. The younger looked less picture perfect than he had that morning, and his hair was certainly more messed up, but Kyungsoo thought it all made him look quite handsome. He noticed he was carrying a small plastic bag in his hand.

“Jongin. Hey, what is it?”

“Hi, hyung. My afternoon class got cancelled, so I, uhm, I came back home. Also, I thought it would be a good idea to bring you this…” He offered the bag to Kyungsoo, who took it from him with a questioning look on his face. “It’s Gatorade, and also Alka-Seltzer… You said you went out last night, and I don’t know if it was just because I woke you up, but you didn’t look like you were feeling very well, so I thought you could use a few hangover remedies…”

Kyungsoo blinked up at Jongin a few times before letting out a laugh. “Oh, Jongin—that was really just me when I’m tired. I barely drank anything last night! I’m not hangover… But thank you anyway, this is very sweet of you…” He was still smiling in utter amusement at Jongin, though the younger looked a little bit like he wanted to die. 

“Oh—Oh, my god, I’m sorry…! This is why I can’t be a considerate neighbor; I always fuck up somehow… Well, whatever, you can keep those if you want, anyway.” Kyungsoo couldn’t help laughing once again, perhaps enjoying the way Jongin was jutting his lower lip out in a pout more than he should.

“You didn’t fuck up! And you know how people say it’s the intention that counts? Plus, I looked so bad earlier today, I’m not surprised you thought I was in desperate need of help, though I probably still look that way…” 

Jongin shook his head at that, tufts of fluffy brown hair moving along as well. His expression was unreadable, seemingly serious all of a sudden, but simultaneously very serene. “No, you don’t.”

Their eyes met for a moment, Kyungsoo’s wide and Jongin’s heavy-lidded, and for the fraction of a second it occurred to Kyungsoo that he could stare into Jongin’s deep, dark eyes for days.

The moment was lost, though, because Chanyeol appeared once again, walking down the hall with one of Kyungsoo’s fluffy white towels wrapped around his waist but otherwise naked and wet. “Kyungsoo-yah, do you think you have more of my old clothes somewhere? Yours are definitely not going to fit—“

The tall man stopped dead on his tracks when he saw that Kyungsoo was at the front door, talking to someone. 

Kyungsoo felt his heart sink in his chest and his eyes widened, making him look like a deer caught on headlights. He looked at Jongin and he saw the way his eyes were fixed on Chanyeol for the brief seconds it took the elder to apologize quickly with a bow of his head and escape into the bathroom again, making sure the towel wrapped around his waist didn’t fall and looking just as scared and embarrassed himself.

“That’s, uhm, that’s my friend Chanyeol.” Kyungsoo said, really unsure of what to say but feeling like he had to offer some sort of explanation. He mindlessly played with the handles of the plastic bag his neighbor had handed him, a visible sign of nervousness. Jongin had seen Chanyeol sleeping on the couch before, but that was one thing; it was an entirely different thing to have that same person appear nearly naked after a shower many hours later asking about their old stuff. This is it, Kyungsoo thought, he’s going to be disgusted and scared that I’ll make a move on him, or something, because there’s no way he doesn't think I’m gay after something like this.

“You do seem like good friends.” Jongin’s words made Kyungsoo flinch inwardly. He couldn’t have been more wrong and more right at the same time. His expression was still weird and unreadable, though it was maybe more hermetic than it had been before. “Anyway, I told you you can keep that stuff. I should probably go now, but I guess I’ll see you around, hyung?”

Kyungsoo held onto the contents of the bag through the plastic material as he nodded, feeling his mouth going dry. A feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that he had indeed realized. “Yeah, I guess we will. Thank you for this, again. It was really thoughtful of you.”

One of the sides of Jongin’s lips curved upwards, and the result was a strange lopsided smirk that didn’t offer much more emotions than his serious expression he had before. “It was nothing, don’t worry about it. Bye, hyung.”

Kyungsoo felt small all of a sudden, like an important part of himself was lying there in the open against his will. And he didn’t know why it was, but Jongin’s opinion of him and especially of this part of him really mattered to him. Perhaps because he had made him feel like he had a chance of making a new friend regardless of the difference in their ages and their activities; perhaps because Jongin had showed him how insignificant a well-built routine was when faced to fun, spontaneity, and little accidents. It hadn’t been long since he had met Jongin, but in that brief time he had managed to leave a mark on Kyungsoo. He really, really hoped he hadn’t fucked things up because he feared that losing a person like Jongin before he even had a chance to really know him to something like his sexuality, just like he had lost many people before to the same thing –even his own parents, in a way—, would destroy a lot of the progress he had made in the years where he had learnt to love and accept himself.

“Bye, Jongin.”


	6. Bonds

Kyungsoo didn't see Jongin during the rest of the week and he was starting to get worried that he had scared him so much he would never want to talk to him again. 

He did see Sehun, though, when he was walking home from the subway station after work on a Saturday night, his skinny frame, broad shoulders, and light blond hair unmistakable even in the poorly illuminated street. There was somebody else with him, though; it was a guy just as tall as him (perhaps even taller) with his hair dyed a slightly darker shade of blond. He couldn't see the guy's face because the pair had gone off walking in the opposite direction as Kyungsoo, clad in party clothes that were a little too tight for such a hot night, but he supposed it was probably a friend of his from the dance academy. 

As Kyungsoo went up the stairs and then into his apartment he wondered why Jongin hadn't joined them in what looked like a fun night out; had he chosen to stay in on a Saturday night? Was he already out doing something else, maybe? Was he with somebody or was he by himself—?

He shook his head to prevent his thoughts from wandering down places that were none of his business and that he shouldn't even be questioning in first place, so he decided to busy his hands and his mind with the task of making dinner.

He turned on the living room's television (just for the sake of having some sort of noise in the room to keep him company) and then headed to the kitchen. His plan of making dinner was quickly discarded once he saw the many tupperwares he had stacked neatly in his fridge, all of them filled with the week's leftovers, so instead of making something new he opted to just reheat some of the older stuff before it started to turn bad.

He had barely finished emptying the first tupperware from the two-day-old japchae it contained when he heard a series of knocks on the door, only a tiny bit louder than the voices of the characters of the latest drama that was coming from the television.

Kyungsoo's stomach gave a little flip. He could recognize the way of knocking as Jongin's after having been visited by his younger neighbor plenty of times before, so unless it was just him being overly paranoid, then he already knew who would be standing on the other side of the door when he opened it.

Surely enough, he was faced with Jongin once he opened the front door of his apartment, but he wasn't alone. He had his dog, Monggu, by his side, but Kyungsoo noticed there was no leash keeping it in place. The fluffy brown poodle was just calmly standing next to its owner, who was sporting a smile that seemed a little bit too sheepish. 

Kyungsoo greeted him first.

"Hi, Jongin— oh, it’s Monggu, right?" Jongin nodded after bowing his head at Kyungsoo as greeting. Despite the bundle of nerves that settled in his stomach the moment he had heard the series of knocks on the door, Kyungsoo smiled easily at the sight of the younger boy and his dog in front of him. "What brings you here?"

"Hi, hyung. Well... The truth is I was hoping we could continue our Inuyasha marathon tonight...? I mean, if that's okay with you, of course, and you don't have any plans…"

Kyungsoo nodded, feeling a huge weight lift from his shoulders at the knowledge that, perhaps, Jongin wasn't as freaked out at the possibility of his neighbor being gay as he had thought initially. "Yeah, of course. I don't have plans, and actually I was just heating up some leftovers to have dinner—"

"But, hyung, the thing is that Sehun went out tonight with this Chinese guy from his class, Zitao, and I don't want to leave Monggu by himself. He's always alone during the week, after all... Would it be okay if I brought him with me?"

Kyungsoo doubted for a second. He liked dogs, but there was a reason he didn't have any pets and that reason was an undying love for a spotless apartment. But for some reason, no matter how thoroughly he looked for a valid reason to deny Jongin of his request (which probably hadn't been easy for him to muster in first place, considering the wide age gap between the two of them and the strained smile on the younger’s face), he couldn't find a single one. 

Seeing how it took a while for Kyungsoo to answer, Jongin rushed to add, "I swear he's really well behaved! And he's clean, too. But if you say no, it's okay! I can just leave him home for a while..."

The way Jongin talked about Monggu made Kyungsoo smile a little bit. "Nah, you can bring him."

Jongin's eyes lit up at that, brightening his entire face, and Kyungsoo noticed how any trace of nervousness on his face dissipated. "Really, hyung?"

Kyungsoo couldn't help but chuckle as he stepped aside to let Jongin in. "Yeah, really. But if he makes a mess, you're cleaning it."

Jongin laughed as he slipped off his shoes and placed them neatly by a pair of sneakers of Kyungsoo's, the difference in size remarkable. "Of course! Thank you so much, hyung, really. If it were up to me I'd take him everywhere with me... And I kind of really wanted to do this tonight, you know? It's been since Wednesday already and I don't want to forget what's happened in the show so far."

Jongin followed after Kyungsoo as he headed towards the kitchen to continue his work of putting together a decent dinner from the several containers with leftovers in his fridge. Monggu followed after its owner closely, like a shadow, and the sound of the dog's paws on the wooden floor was simultaneously strange and endearing to Kyungsoo. 

"It's true, it's been a while, hasn't it? I don't think I've even seen you around." Kyungsoo said as casually as possible as he put rice into two bowls, though he stopped himself before putting a second spoonful onto the second bowl. "Did you eat?" 

Jongin simply shook his head and Kyungsoo went on filling the bowl with rice. He saw the younger crouch on the floor by the side of the counter to stroke and rub at Monggu's fur affectionately. "I haven't. Sehun and I are too lazy to cook sometimes, and none of us is good at cooking in the first place. I like your cooking, though. A lot. Sehun likes it too. I wish I could've come sooner, but we had an anatomy test on Friday and I stayed late at school with a classmate to study... I thought I was done with theoretical classes, but apparently not..."

Kyungsoo chuckled as he put the plates of rice in the microwave, the weight he was feeling on his shoulders reducing to the point of almost disappearing. "Well, if you studied for it then I'm sure you did okay." He couldn't stop himself from adding, "and here I thought you were avoiding me, or something."

Surprisingly, Jongin answered. "Well... There was a tiny little bit of that as well…" 

Kyungsoo looked down at his neighbor, who was busy petting his dog, his eyes trained on its curly brown fur, slightly taken aback, though pleased at the unexpected frankness. "Oh. Why, exactly? Is it because of what happened the other day, or...?"

Jongin's shoulders raised in a shrug, though he kept on petting and looking at Monggu. Kyungsoo himself wasn't a hundred percent sure of what he meant by that, but he thought Jongin was on a similar wavelength. "Yeah. I was embarrassed about interrupting you when you were with that guy, Chanyeol-ssi, the other day."

One of Kyungsoo's eyebrows darted upwards at that. Apparently they weren't in the same wavelength at all. "Interrupting?"

The younger nodded, still avoiding Kyungsoo's stare. "Hyung, I may be younger than you, but I'm not dumb, or blind. You seemed very nervous when he appeared and I was there too, and he asked about his old clothes, too. I know what that means."

Kyungsoo blinked a few times before he chuckled. "You have a really good memory."

Only then did Jongin look up at him. "I want to get my title in choreography."

The microwave beeped, then, signaling that the rice was done cooking. Kyungsoo carefully removed the bowls of rice from inside of it and placed the dish with japchae in it to heat it up. For some reason he couldn't stop his next words coming out of his lips even if they made the bundle of nerves and anxiety at the pit of his stomach reappear with more strength than ever. "Chanyeol is actually my ex-boyfriend."

He heard a soft gasp come from the younger. When he noticed he had reincorporated and was no longer petting his dog, he looked away from the microwave and at his neighbor instead. "Oh. I'm sorry, hyung..." 

Kyungsoo's eyebrow darted up again in renewed confusion. "What? About what?"

"About you breaking up with your boyfriend?" Jongin stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. There was not a hint of disgust in his face as he spoke, but Kyungsoo still felt a little on edge. He was not used to discussing this sort of thing openly, and Jongin's reactions and questions to the information he offered were confusing, to say the least. 

"We broke up two years ago, though."

Jongin's brow furrowed at that and he cocked his head to the side. He was obviously confused, and it was awfully cute (or at least Kyungsoo thought so in the depths of his mind that weren’t occupied with dealing with a growing feeling of nervousness). "But then... Why was he—?"

"We were out with our friends and he drank too much to go back to his home, so I brought him here. He had a very hard day, and our other friends can be a bit too thick sometimes so they didn't really notice he wasn't doing okay..." His tone was surprisingly casual even if his chest was beating wildly in his chest. The microwave beeped again so he went on preparing the side dishes. He wasn’t in the mood of eating much more than just kimchi, though. 

"I see... Well, I hope he's doing better now," Jongin said, and he sounded sincere enough to make Kyungsoo smile slightly and nod his head, still nervous. It had been weird, and it felt like there was still something missing –like something was still hanging in the air between them—, but the exchange had ended up way better than he had expected and he had managed to come out to Jongin somewhat successfully. 

Jongin spoke again as the chef put enough kimchi for the two of them in a separate bowl. "Do you want me to set up the next episode on the TV? It’s number eleven, right?"

 

Monggu followed closely after Jongin as the younger went over to the widescreen television on the living room to set up the episode they had to watch, all the while Kyungsoo put the dishes on a tray which he placed on the living room’s coffee table. The food and the show were ready soon enough, and in a matter of minutes the two were eating microwaved leftovers while they watched the eleventh episode of Inuyasha, Monggu sleeping on the rug between Jongin's feet. It was almost as if nothing had happened; as if they hadn't had what had been one of the most low-key nerve-wracking conversations of Kyungsoo's life just a few minutes ago.

However, there was a question still lingering on Kyungsoo’s lips; one that he couldn't ignore for long and that only became more insistent as they ate and watched anime on Kyungsoo's couch. The first episode of the night was over soon enough, and Kyungsoo's lips tingled with the words he wanted to ask. So he asked away, his voice soft yet firm over Inuyasha's ending theme song, his eyes trained on the screen.

"Are you okay with it?" 

Jongin hummed in acknowledgement at the question, and Kyungsoo saw him turn his head in his direction through the corner of his eyes. "About what?"

"About what I told you before... About Chanyeol. Well, actually, about me." He looked at Jongin, then, after the younger remained silent for a while. His face was serious, yet serene; he had seen him make that same expression when he had said he thought he looked like a mess after Jongin had brought him a Gatorade and Alka-Seltzer. 

"Hyung... Of course I'm okay with it...! I..." Kyungsoo leaned over to place his empty bowl on the tray he had put on the coffee table, and when he turned to face Jongin he noticed that the younger was sitting with his whole upper body facing him. He took a deep breath. "I'm like that, too. Not straight, I mean.”

Whatever Kyungsoo had been expecting Jongin to say, it had definitely not been that. He felt a little silly all of a sudden, for making such a big deal out of it. "Wha— for real?"

Jongin nodded slowly, biting on his lower lip a little thoughtfully. "Yeah." He chuckled, then, letting go of his lip. "You will laugh, but Sehun was actually my first kiss. We never felt anything for each other –or at least I didn't—, but when we were fourteen, and for a while after that, we used to kiss a lot. It never really changed things between us, but I guess it helped him realize that he is gay. It also helped me realize that I'm not straight. I wouldn't say I'm gay either, though –even if I think I like guys more than girls. But anyway, his mom found us one day, on Sehun's fifteenth birthday, and we never did it again... It was so embarrassing, I wanted to die. But she was comprehensive. Sort of. She tried to chaperone all of our sleepovers after that…"

Kyungsoo's eyes went wide at the story Jongin was telling him at first, but the surprise subsided a little bit and turned into amusement, so he ended up laughing along with him. "So the guy I saw him with outside, is he his date or something?"

Jongin chuckled and nodded, and Kyungsoo noticed how his cheeks rose and turned his eyes into small crescents. "Yeah, that's Zitao. It's the second time they go out together, actually."

Kyungsoo hummed, still kind of surprised by Jongin's confession, and so, a little less talkative than usual. They fell into silence once again after that, though it was charged and it didn't last very long (and the twelfth episode of Inuyasha had already started so the sound of it filled the room). 

Jongin broke the silence next time, his fingers playing with his pair of wooden chopsticks and his voice soft. "So... You are still friends with Chanyeol, then?"

The elder looked at his neighbor, then, who was looking back at him despite sounding like he would rather be looking anywhere else. He nodded. "Yeah. We're friends with the same people, too. We see each other every now and then, when we all get together, but never outside of that. The other day was the exception. We really are over each other, and we are friends in a way, even if it’s a little awkward between just the two of us sometimes… He's been with other people after being with me, too, but we did break up a long time ago, so…"

Jongin's question came too quickly, nearly interrupting him. "And you?"

Kyungsoo hummed, a bit startled. "What?"

"Have you been with other people since then...? Guys? Girls...?" He looked down, and Kyungsoo thought he saw a small blush appear on his tan cheeks.

"Oh. It's only guys for me. And no, I haven't been with anyone since then." Kyungsoo was impressed by how easy it was to talk about this with Jongin, and even if the bundle of nerves in his stomach was still there, it was almost as if it had changed into a different, more pleasant kind of nervousness. The warmer, less unpleasant kind.

"Haven't found the right one yet?" Jongin asked, tilting his head to the side slightly, the hint of a smile on his lips.

Kyungsoo shook his head, feeling a small smile grow on his own lips. "I haven't even tried looking, honestly."

Monggu woke up, then, and it stretched its legs, putting its paws on Jongin's knees as it looked up at its owner. Jongin looked at Kyungsoo at that, probably asking for permission to let his dog climb onto the couch and onto his lap, which he granted with a small nod. 

None of them had bothered to look at the television screen where the following episode of Inuyasha was still playing.

Jongin carded his fingers through the soft brown curls of Monggu’s head between its ears. "It's a shame they don't allow animals in here..."

Kyungsoo's eyes followed the movement of Jongin's fingers threading through his dog's fur. He even felt tempted enough to reach out with his hand to carefully, tentatively touch the dog's back. It was just as soft as it looked and he buried his fingers in the dog’s curly hair. He smirked as he looked up at Jongin, though. "Well, it's not like that stopped you from having one anyway."

The younger just smiled widely, a soft laugh leaving his lips. "Yeah, well...! I can't live without puppies. I can hardly live without the ones I had to leave behind at my parent’s house… But, hey, I thought my secret would be safe with you, hyung?"

Kyungsoo smiled and nodded as he threaded fingers through Monggu's soft, warm curls. He noticed Jongin's eyes were fixed on his face, though, so he looked up and he held his stare. "Of course it’s safe with me."

Jongin grinned. "Great." He looked down at Monggu, then, breaking eye contact. His –large, tan—hands started reaching lower, down the poodle's neck and the bottom of its muzzle to rub at the fur there, to which the dog responded very positively, by stretching its legs over its owner’s lap and turning over, causing Kyungsoo's hand to slide from its back to its belly. "You know, hyung, I owe you one. A huge one. In fact, I owe you such a big one that it has to make up for you not only keeping Monggu a secret, but also for you feeding me and letting me watch anime here." 

Kyungsoo just chuckled as he rubbed at Monggu's warm belly. "If I didn't want to do any of this do you think I would?"

Jongin shrugged, smiling. "Perhaps you’re just being nice?"

"I'm not nice." Kyungsoo tried to be serious as he said that, but he ended up chuckling once again.

"You are to me."

Jongin smiled at him, his smile just as dazzling as it had been from the first day. Kyungsoo felt his heart skip a beat at the sight, and he couldn't stop himself from smiling in return. 

Suddenly, he felt incredibly glad that Jongin had decided to show up that day even if the food they had had for dinner hadn't been fresh and the anime had been forgotten for the sake of conversation. But that conversation was precisely the thing that made him the gladdest about Jongin's (and Monggu's) visit. He felt closer to Jongin now; like there was some sort of complicity between the two of them, or a secret only they shared (even if that was probably not the case). 

Episodes twelve and thirteen had already finished by the time Jongin was yawning repeatedly, his eyelids drooping, and he suggesting heading back home. None of them had paid attention to the anime despite their original plan to marathon their way through it, the two of them way too engrossed in the task of petting a joyfully sleeping Monggu and talking about everything and nothing at all. The more he talked to Jongin and the more he got to know about his neighbor, the more the age gap between them seemed to fade. He wondered if the same thing happened to him (and he kind of hoped it did).

 

"We're going to have to watch it all over again tomorrow", Jongin said as he slipped into his sneakers on the entrance to Kyungsoo's apartment, Monggu sleeping between the boy's arms. 

Kyungsoo nodded in agreement, though he snickered. "We suck at this; it's going to take us forever to finish this damn anime..."

Jongin's smile was bright and charming even if his eyes were sleepy. "I don't mind, though. I have a lot of fun doing this, doesn’t matter if we watch it at all or not…" He accommodated Monggu so he was using just one arm to hold it so he could give Kyungsoo a peace sign with his fingers before stepping onto the hall. "Well, night, hyung!"

Kyungsoo waved at him, muttering a soft ‘good night’ under his breath, and he watched him struggle with Monggu's weight as he looked around his pockets for his house keys, laughing at the way he tried his best not to bother his dog while simultaneously complaining about its weight and size. He found them before Kyungsoo could offer his help, though, and with a final small wave they both disappeared into their own apartments.

Later that night, a few minutes after finally going to bed to sleep, his phone vibrated on his nightstand. The notification was of a new text from an unknown number, so he opened it, unsure of what to expect.

He smiled and his heart skipped its second beat that day once he had finished reading it.

Before falling asleep, Kyungsoo added Kim Jongin (301) to his list of contacts.

 

_From: Unknown number (1:04 AM)_

_Hi hyung! If you're sleeping and this text wakes you up i'm sorry ㅠㅠ  
It's Kim Jongin, by the way (I got your number from the list of useful numbers you let me copy weeks ago but I hadn't used it until now! ㅋㅋㅋi swear i’m not a stalker!  
but anyway… I wanted to tell you that I’m really thankful for all you’ve done for me (and Sehun and Monggu too) since we moved in: the phone numbers, the food, and just your hospitality in general… you’re the best neighbor I’ve ever had! \^n^/  
but especially, thank you for trusting in me today. i trust in you too, hyung, i hope you can tell  
sleep well and see you soon!!_


	7. Miscommunication

Around three weeks later they managed to reach the three-digit-episode milestone. 

After the talk they had had in which both Kyungsoo and Jongin had ended opening up to each other more deeply than ever before, Jongin’s visits to Kyungsoo’s apartment started becoming more and more frequent and they had managed to watch the Inuyasha anime at a steady rhythm even though there had been days where they hadn’t bothered watching it.

Those were the days every now and then where Jongin had had to stay at school until late at night to perfect this or that dance move for this or that class; days where he would go out with Sehun and his new friend from the academy –a skinny kid called Taemin that physically resembled Jongin so much that they could easily pass as relatives, or at least that was what Kyungsoo thought when he watched a relatively poor-quality video of Jongin and his friend practicing their latest ballet choreography in front of a mirror that Jongin had recorded with his phone; when Kyungsoo met Taemin in person, one time when he had come home with Jongin after school before going out, he really thought they could be lost brothers or something (if it hadn’t been for the furtive looks he gave Jongin that only Jongin didn't seem to be aware of) —; but also, there were days where they ended up ignoring the anime in favor of other things, like cooking, talking, or marathoning other things (like that time Jongin had announced some cable channel was going to pass every Harry Potter movie during the weekend; Jongin had been so excited about it that Kyungsoo had stopped at the store on his way home from work that Saturday to buy a huge amount of popcorn for the second night of the movie marathon and they ordered pizza instead of making dinner as usual so Kyungsoo wouldn’t have to miss a single bit).

Monggu had become a constant guest at his apartment as well, and Kyungsoo was able to confirm that Jongin had been honest when he had said that his brown poodle was actually a very well behaved dog despite its bad habit of sneaking its muzzle into its owner’s plate of food –and Kyungsoo’s as well, after it had become comfortable enough with him and after the shorter man had given in to the puppy’s whines for human food and ended up giving him a piece or two of his bulgogi.

Kyungsoo had fallen for the dog’s charms alarmingly fast; by the third time Jongin had visited after they had had what Kyungsoo inwardly called the Important Talk, Kyungsoo had offered Monggu a space in the couch between Jongin and himself for it to sleep while both humans watched Inuyasha, and while the dog had chosen its owner’s lap to rest his head at first, around ten days later it often ended up curled up into a kind of fat, but very soft and warm brown ball of fur in Kyungsoo’s lap (which had Jongin whining about his dog loving his neighbor more than him and Kyungsoo laughing and teasing the younger every single time).

As time passed it started to become more and more evident that something had started to shift within Kyungsoo’s and Jongin’s relationship.

Kyungsoo had found Jongin extremely attractive since the first day he saw him, pots and pans scattered all over the hallway, but that initial attraction had never really worn off like he had expected it to. In fact, it had only grown stronger the more time the two neighbors spent together. 

More than two months had passed since Jongin had moved in to the apartment across the hall and Kyungsoo was no less surprised by the other’s simultaneous handsomeness and cuteness than he had been the first time he had laid his eyes on him. Sometimes he had caught himself staring for a moment too long at Jongin’s face when the younger had been too enraptured by the anime on the screen, silently admiring the bronze skin of the younger’s face, his messy brown hair (that had been dyed two shades lighter and gotten longer and fluffier some time before they had reached episode one hundred), the way his dark chocolate eyes always seemed lazy beneath heavy lids, and also, his plump, full, dark lips that were more than a little inviting.

Kyungsoo had had to stop himself more than a few times from thinking about how good it would feel to press his own lips against Jongin’s before falling asleep, even if sometimes he couldn’t help but let his mind wander.

But it would be a lie to say that Kyungsoo only thought Jongin was physically attractive, because he was just as –if not more— attracted to his neighbor’s personality. They could talk for hours on end, and they had had more hours-long conversations than he could count with the fingers of one hand, and Kyungsoo thought that fact alone could be considered a feat in itself since he had always considered himself a quiet, non-talkative person. With Jongin it was different.

Everything about Jongin and the way he had barged in into his life was different; unexpected, spontaneous, and messy. Kyungsoo had never been late for work before he had met Jongin; Kyungsoo had never forgotten about doing laundry on Sundays until that time Jongin texted him asking if he could come over for lunch because Sehun had stayed over at Zitao’s and he and Monggu didn’t want to eat alone (he had also attached a cute picture of Monggu; he never really stood a chance); Kyungsoo had never been one to actively text people –the last one being Chanyeol—, but he had found that not a single day went by without Jongin and him exchanging plenty of texts asking each other if they had had breakfast or lunch, commenting about something interesting or strange they had seen during the day while on their way to school or work, and sometimes sharing pictures or videos of a dish Kyungsoo had prepared or of Jongin’s latest choreography; Kyungsoo had never gone out of his routine for anyone in years, but now it was all he seemed to be doing. Since Jongin had become a part of his life it was like all the parts where Jongin didn’t participate had become secondary.

And for some reason he was okay with it.

Jongin had wormed his way into Kyungsoo’s life through surprises and spontaneity, and the way Kyungsoo’s breath caught in his throat whenever his eyes accidentally met the younger’s across the island counter of his old kitchen when he was making dinner for the two of them, the way his eyes drifted towards the younger every time he got slightly distracted from watching Inuyasha, and the way his whole body started feeling tingly after waving the younger boy goodbye, only closing his front door after making sure Jongin had made it inside of his own apartment were clear signs of just how okay he was with everything. 

He realized that liked Jongin, and he liked him for real. 

But he might have realized that a little bit too late.

It was past midnight of a Tuesday night and they had just finished episode one-hundred-two. Monggu was sleeping on the couch between Kyungsoo and Jongin and there were two now-empty bowls of food on the coffee table. They had gotten the habit of not letting their anime marathon stretch for too long during weekdays since they both had to be up in the morning, so Kyungsoo went up to the TV to put away the DVD disc after they had agreed to watch the following episode the next day.

A strange, heavy silence had fallen between them, filled with a strange tension that Kyungsoo had become aware of as soon as Jongin had walked into his apartment, unusually quiet and evasive. Kyungsoo looked over his shoulder as he put the DVD away on the shelf to find Jongin sitting up straight on the edge of the couch, his eyes fixed on the way his own fingers were playing with Monggu’s curls. The shorter man stood up and went to turn off the TV, trying to ignore both the uncomfortable atmosphere and the way his own heart had started beating twice as fast even if he was facing the TV and Jongin was out of his field of vision.

“So…” Jongin started as Kyungsoo put the remote back on the coffee table. “Taemin asked me out today, after class.”

And that was all it took for realization to hit Kyungsoo like a train. His breath got caught up in his throat and his entire body froze, and he it felt like his heart had forgotten how to work all of a sudden. 

“Oh.” Kyungsoo said, though his voice came out slightly more high pitched than he had expected it to, probably a side effect of the bundle of nerves that had settled on his throat. He searched his brain for something else to say, something that didn’t reveal how much he disliked the entire idea of Jongin dating someone. Someone that wasn’t him, a small voice in his head said, because of course he had known he liked Jongin before, but it seemed like it hadn’t been until his time together with Jongin had been put in danger that he had realized that perhaps he didn’t want to have to share him, that he wanted to be the one Jongin spent his free time with. “What did you tell him?”

Kyungsoo forced himself to turn around so he could face Jongin, so it would appear that he wasn’t as deeply affected, but the younger’s eyes were still fixed on Monggu’s fur. Perhaps it was better like that. Jongin hummed and shrugged, but he wasn’t as nonchalant as he tried to appear. “I said, ‘sure why not’.”

The older hummed in acknowledgement while he tried to fight off the part of him that didn’t want to share Jongin with somebody else; the part of himself that yelled angrily at the more patient, rational part of him for having let time pass without telling his neighbor how he had started to feel about him and consequently letting any chance to be with him go to waste, all because somebody else had seen the same magic in Jongin that he had seen but they had actually done something about it and asked him out. Unlike him.

He wouldn’t have said yes, anyway, he reasoned with himself. He probably sees me like some sort of big brother he never had but always wanted – that Taemin guy, he’s from his class. They like the same stuff and they’re the same age, it makes more sense for them to be together than for us to be together.

“Do you like him?” Kyungsoo asked, though he didn’t even know where the question came from. As soon as the words left his lips, he started busying himself with taking the dishes in his hands and carrying them over to the kitchen so he wouldn’t have to look at Jongin and give away too much of what he was feeling (which, he didn’t want to admit, was definitely jealousy) to Jongin.

Jongin followed him to the kitchen even if Kyungsoo didn’t think he would, given how focused he had seemed on his dog’s fur merely seconds ago. “I… I don’t know yet. I like being with him, and we have fun together. That’s why I told him yes.” Kyungsoo hummed as he started washing the dishes, though he didn’t miss the way Jongin stood close to him, distractedly playing with the plastic fruit magnets on his fridge but stealing glances at him that were making him a little bit nervous. “I just wanted to let you know… Cause if we, you know— if we start going out, then I won’t be able to come here as often. We’re going out on Friday.”

Kyungsoo felt like he needed to take a deep breath, but he conformed with holding onto the sponge with which he was cleaning the dishes more tightly, his knuckles on the verge of turning white even under the hot water. “Yeah, of course.”

His voice had come out a bit more sharply than he had intended it to, but he was becoming more irritated with every passing second. Jongin didn’t stop talking, though, and the way the dancer seemed to avoid looking straight at him and kept his hands and his eyes busy with other things were a sign to Kyungsoo that he was unsure about all of this so he shouldn’t –and couldn’t— just ask him to shut up because he had been silly enough to develop feelings for him and he was getting jealous. Jongin’s following words made it clear to Kyungsoo how unsure the younger felt. “Do you think it’s good that I go out with him?”

He tried being nonchalant so he shrugged in response, but the movement came out a little too rough, a little too tense, a little too revealing of how he was feeling inside. “I don’t know, Jongin. I suppose it is? Why wouldn’t it be good? If he likes you, and you like him, then that’s good enough, isn’t it? But you know, Jongin, you really don’t have to give me explanations about what you do. If you want to go out, just go out, or whatever; you can do whatever you want.”

Jongin frowned. Or perhaps Kyungsoo imagined it because he was trying not to look at him anymore even through the corners of his eyes. “I’m not giving explanations, hyung. I’m just… I don’t know, I just wanted to tell you about it, while I told you why I won’t be able to make it here on Friday. I didn’t know you were going to get mad, or weird, or whatever. I mean, I know you don’t like Taemin, but— ”

Kyungsoo sighed, interrupting Jongin. He closed the tap since he had ran out of dishes, chopsticks, and saucepans left to wash. He thought he could feel a headache coming. “That’s stupid, I’m not mad or weird or anything. And I don’t even know Taemin enough to know whether I like him or not!”

“You obviously dislike him more than what you like him, though— I mean, the last time he came, that time when you ran into us in the hallway, you weren’t very nice to him; you were kinda cold, to be honest, and he didn’t feel very comfortable. And you’re never happy when I bring him up…”

“So what? What is it to you if I didn’t like him? Does it make a difference? Are you not going to date Taemin just because I didn’t smile at him one time, or something?” Kyungsoo had turned his body to face Jongin, and he found that the younger was already looking at him, a deep frown on his face that only grew at Kyungsoo’s words.

“Obviously not. I’ll date whoever I want, but excuse me for wanting to talk to you about it once!” 

Kyungsoo was getting more exasperated by second, the volume of his voice rising. “I just don’t know what the hell you want me to tell you! You told me you won’t come on Friday, okay, that’s fine, whatever. But what do you expect me to say when you ask if it’s good that you’re going on a date with your friend?”

Jongin lifted both hands, questioningly. “I don’t know? Your honest opinion, maybe?”, he asked before turning around and heading out of the kitchen. Kyungsoo followed right after him, unwilling to let Jongin simply walk away.

“But does it even matter? If I said it was cool, or if I said it fucking sucks, what do you care? You said yes anyway, you’re going out anyway! What difference does my opinion make?”

Kyungsoo was surprised when Jongin turned around all of a sudden, facing him once again, the younger’s height taking him by surprise because even if he had gotten used to it, he had never had had to look up at him in the midst of an argument. He felt small, like Jongin could see right through him with the intensity with which he was staring deep into his eyes with his dark brown ones. “It does make a difference. I mean, it could have, whatever. But you obviously don’t care about any of this. I’ll just go home, it’s late already and I have class in the morning.” Jongin walked right past him, leaving him slightly confused and annoyed behind him. 

He picked Monggu up and cradled it in his arms before heading for the entrance. The easiness with which the younger walked around his apartment, instead of making him feel warm inside like it would have under different circumstances, was only unnerving him further. 

When Jongin closed the door behind him, with a softness that surprised Kyungsoo, he was still feeling irritated, jealous, confused, and also, kind of sad. He had no idea how they had ended up arguing, what he had done wrong, what he should have said instead of what he had in fact said. It was frustrating because, unlike what Jongin had claimed, Kyungsoo did care. In fact, he probably cared a little too much even if the realization hadn’t come until he had been put in the situation where he had to choose between revealing just how much he cared and letting the possessive part of him take over or keeping his mouth shut and ignore the longing he felt in favor of not fucking things up with the object of his longing. 

In the end, taking the second road hadn’t prevented things from fucking up. It had kept the fact that he liked Jongin a secret, a fact that had been acknowledged by him the very second it dawned on him, but still Jongin had stormed off in the end.

Spontaneous, unexpected, messy; everything was like that with Jongin, it seemed.


	8. Confessions I

An unpleasant feeling had started to grow in Kyungsoo’s gut throughout the next day –or rather, the unpleasant feeling that had settled inside him the night before had intensified. He had been unusually distracted at work and had ended up with a small wound on his lower lip from biting it too much, something he did when he was nervous. He doubted Jongin would want to go to his apartment that night, or the following one, but he didn’t want to think the previous night’s argument had ruined what he had with the younger boy, whether it was friendship or anything else.

Regardless of the feelings Kyungsoo had for his neighbor, regardless of the fact that Jongin had found himself a boyfriend, he didn’t want to stop being, at the very least, Jongin’s friend. He still wanted to watch old anime with him on his couch, he still wanted to cook for him (and Sehun, too), he still wanted to have Monggu fall asleep on his lap and hear Jongin whine about it next to him. 

But his phone had been unusually silent the entire day. Not even a small greeting from Jongin, like he had gotten used to over the course of the last couple of months. He knew by then, after countless conversations in his living room or kitchen after midnight, just how proud Jongin could get after an argument or a fight, so it made sense that he didn’t want to talk to him for some time. Perhaps, Kyungsoo thought pessimistically, it would be a long while before he dropped by with Monggu once again. 

It wasn’t until Kyungsoo was standing in the crowded subway car on his way home that his phone vibrated in his pocket for the first time that day. He scrambled to get it out of his jeans pockets in the reduced space, heart suddenly beating faster in his ribcage when he saw it was a text from Jongin (he had deleted the _’301’_ from his contact number soon after adding Jongin to his list of contacts; he didn’t know any other person with the same name as Jongin, and besides, he was sure he would never be able to forget who he was).

_From: Jongin (8:47 PM)  
Hi. is it ok if i go to your house today?_

Kyungsoo felt his stomach flip. He typed a text in response once he had recovered from the surge of anxiety that such a simple text ignited inside of him, his fingers slow on the touch screen of his phone.

_To: Jongin (8:48 PM)  
Yeah, of course. I’ll be there in around half an hour, though._

Jongin’s text came almost immediately after his.

_From: Jongin (8:48 PM)  
Ok…. See you hyung~_

◇ ◇ ◇

Kyungsoo was rummaging through the pantry for a new pack of powdered pepper when Jongin knocked his characteristic knock on the front door of his apartment.

He was still nervous about the whole situation, but the fact that Jongin wasn’t mad enough to not want to visit him was extremely relieving and it really helped him feel better.

“Hi,” Kyungsoo greeted the younger boy with a small smile. He was dressed very casually, in grey sweatpants and a t-shirt that Kyungsoo knew by then served as pajamas. His brown hair was a little bit wet, a sign that he had showered recently. He was wearing sneakers, though, and he was holding Monggu’s red leash in his hand. The poodle was standing by its owner’s legs, wagging its tail in excitement and panting heavily, tongue sticking out of its mouth. Jongin, of course, looked stunning, as always, but Kyungsoo tried not to dwell on that.

Jongin smiled down at Kyungsoo a little bit sheepishly. “Hi, hyung.”

Kyungsoo let both Jongin and Monggu in, as usual, but everything felt unusually awkward between the two of them. He offered Jongin some water for Monggu and for himself, and the younger slowly followed him to the kitchen, though he stayed back, leaning against the side of the island counter. Kyungsoo saw him fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt through the corner of his eyes as he poured a bowl and a glass of water. It was strange seeing him like that.

“Here,” Kyungsoo told him as he handed him a glass of water, looking up at him and searching for his eyes. Jongin’s eyes locked with his as he accepted the glass and took it in his hand, and Kyungsoo tried to ignore the electric feeling that ran through his nerves when their fingers brushed together accidentally.

Jongin thanked him softly, but he didn’t start drinking immediately (unlike Monggu, who had started lapping energetically at the bowl of water Kyungsoo had put on by the fridge the moment the bowl had touched the floor). He looked nervous, and Kyungsoo thought he understood —he was feeling pretty strange himself; he felt like he wanted to apologize, though he wasn’t really sure what he should apologize for, and at the same time he was expecting an apology from Jongin even if he couldn’t really tell what he wanted him to apologize for either. 

He thought he would give Jongin a hand and take the initiative, if only to make things less awkward, even if he had never been good at expressing his feelings. He cleared his throat softly to steady his voice.

“It was dumb that we argued yesterday. You know, I thought you weren't going to come today.”

Kyungsoo saw a light blush spread on Jongin’s bronze cheeks. The younger boy looked down at the glass in his hand. “I, uh, I thought about not coming, actually. But then I thought it was stupid not to because it was all my fault that we fought, in first place. I thought I owed you an apology, at least,” he gave Kyungsoo a slight, sheepish smile, one that he had sometimes seen during late night conversations. “For being such a brat.”

The older couldn’t help but smile in return, nodding. “Ah, yes, it was pretty bratty of you to storm off like that…”

Jongin chuckled softly, holding the glass closer to his face even if he still hadn’t taken a single sip of water from it. Perhaps he did it to hide the fact that he was blushing. Kyungsoo could still see, though. “Shut up, I know it was, that’s why I’m apologizing…”

“I know, don't worry. It’s fine…” Kyungsoo smiled at Jongin, and Jongin returned it, still sheepish, before he took his first sip from the glass of water. “I’m sorry, too, if I said something that bothered you or offended you.”

Jongin shook his head energetically, and he rushed to swallow the water in his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You didn’t! That’s the thing. You’re not the one that has to apologize here, it’s me. I overreacted for no reason and ruined things, so.... Yeah... I’m sorry. I really am.”

“It’s okay, I’m not mad at you, or anything, if that’s what’s worrying you.” Jongin seemed relief when Kyungsoo said that, and it showed in the way he smiled, more easily and comfortably.

“Good… So… Are we good, hyung?” The shorter man looked up and found Jongin staring right at him. 

Kyungsoo stopped for a moment. 

_Are we really good_ , he thought, _if whenever I see you sitting there I want to move in closer and take your hand? If I think about kissing you and every inch of you before I fall asleep and I only truly realized when it was too late? If I don’t want to share you, if I don’t want to share_ this, the fact that you are here with me, with anyone else? If I don’t think I will ever be able to look at you without wanting you to be mine?

He nodded. He would live. 

“We’re good.”

◇ ◇ ◇

Somehow, Kyungsoo managed to convince Jongin into helping him cook once the awkwardness had completely disappeared between the two of them.

The chef was surprised he hadn’t come up with the idea of teaching Jongin how to fend for himself in the kitchen after hearing that his neighbor’s culinary skills went as far as instant noodles and scrambled eggs meant. Sehun was no better, he knew by then; the left-overs of the meals he prepared every day had turned into one of the main sources of food of the two boys next door, and yet, Kyungsoo had never thought about showing Jongin his way around the kitchen before.

The younger had whined and refused when Kyungsoo had suggested it at first, saying how he would probably burn down the entire building, but Kyungsoo insisted. Jongin made an effort to keep his pout on for a while, and while Kyungsoo was normally weak to his neighbor’s pout, this time he didn’t let it bend him. He knew it would be for the best.

(“Can I wear the apron that says ‘hot stuff coming through’, though?” Jongin had asked once he knew he couldn’t get away from it. Kyungsoo grinned, too excited about the fact that he had actually talked Jongin into cooking to care about having him wear the apron his ex-boyfriend gave to him. 

“Of course, as long as you don’t back out.” He had ended up wearing his spare apron, a plain green one he never wore.)

They had decided to start by making something simple –something that Jongin wouldn’t have trouble recreating home alone, but not less delicious because of that, so Kyungsoo thought vegetarian _japchae_ was a good place to start (he would have to teach Jongin how to cook meat and rice some other day).

He had never had to teach someone how to cook before because all of the people he had come across in his life had possessed some degree of culinary skills, but it didn’t turn out to be as hard as he thought. Once Jongin dropped the pout and became actually invested in chopping the scallions, slicing onions and mushrooms, mincing garlic, and julienning carrots and zucchini, he started to look like he was actually having a good time.

Kyungsoo didn’t expect Jongin to be able to perform each cutting technique perfectly, but it was very fun to see him try.

“You’re doing it wrong, Jongin-ah; you have to make the carrots into rectangles, not slice them! Here, look,” Kyungsoo laughed honestly before he slowly demonstrated how to correctly julienne a carrot on the cutting board next to Jongin’s sliced ones. “It’s quite different, see?”

Jongin pouted, though Kyungsoo could tell that he hadn’t miss a single second of Kyungsoo’s demonstration. “Yeah. I thought I just had to cut it like we did with the onions; I had no idea the word ‘julienne’ even existed until now…” 

 

In the end they managed to cut all the vegetables somewhat properly, and to reward Jongin for his hard work, Kyungsoo handled the cooking of the noodles. Jongin remained right next to him, though, watching closely. It was really warm in the kitchen, and the added warmth of Jongin’s body standing so close to him should have bothered him, but he didn’t really want to push him away. So he didn’t.

His breath got momentarily caught in his throat when the younger leaned down to rest his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “For how long do we have to cook the noodles?”

Kyungsoo forced his heart rate to go back to normal by trying to ignore the closeness of the younger. “Around five minutes. Then we have to stir fry the vegetables for other five minutes, and then finally we cook everything together. Why, are you getting impatient?” He couldn’t help but smile as he said that. He normally didn’t like sharing his kitchen with other people, but Jongin wasn’t just ‘other people’ anymore.

“I’m starving.” Kyungsoo chuckled at the younger’s words. When it came to food, Jongin was always dramatic. The beating of his heart picked up again when he felt Jongin turning his head, his nose pressing against his shoulder. “What else should I do, then?”

Kyungsoo took a deep shaky breath. “You could try not falling asleep on my shoulder.” There was no real hostility in his voice, and even if Jongin did move away he did so while chuckling.

“Sorry.”

Around twenty minutes later (during which Jongin had actually insisted that he should be the one to try and stir fry the vegetables because ‘how am I supposed to learn how to cook if you don’t let me do the dangerous bits?’; he didn’t do bad at all, but Kyungsoo had to monitor closely just in case) they were done, and they had two medium sized plates as well as a large plastic container full of homemade _japchae_.

“It smells really good!” Jongin said as he took a sniff of one of the steaming bowls, grinning widely. He looked proud of himself, and Kyungsoo felt pleased with himself about making Jongin feel that way.

“It does! It actually turned out really well,” Kyungsoo told Jongin, smiling even if had busied himself with putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. “Not bad for a first timer.”

He heard Jongin chuckle behind him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do this by myself, though. You should text me the recipe, or something. That would help.”

“Sure, but let’s eat first, okay?”

They sat on the island counter next to each other to eat the food they had made together. Monggu had gone to sleep right in the middle of the couch as soon as it was done with his bowl water, but the moment Kyungsoo and Jongin sat down to eat, it jumped from where it was sleeping and went to where its owner was sitting at, standing on its hind legs and stretching its paws on Jongin’s thighs, begging for food.

“No, Mong, down!” Jongin said through a mouthful of noodles and vegetables, though he was laughing and he wasn’t really trying to stop Monggu. Kyungsoo just watched, amused. “It’s the first time I make food; I’m not going to give it to you! Down!”

Kyungsoo chuckled this time, and he patted his own leg to call Monggu’s attention. “I don’t mind giving him a little bit —Monggu-yah, hey, come here.” Before Kyungsoo had finished picking a piece of stir fried mushrooms and carrots between his fingers Monggu was already pressing its front paws onto his thighs and licking at its own muzzle.

“You’ve spoilt my dog rotten, hyung!” Jongin accused, clearly amused at the way Kyungsoo attempted to feed the brown poodle without dirtying his fingers with dog saliva.

“You shouldn’t have had such a cute dog in first place, I can’t resist him.” In the end he just let the piece of food fall in the hope that Monggu would catch it midair which he did with impressive agility. He smirked slightly. “You know, he’s just like you.”

“Why?” He snapped his head up to look at Jongin when he heard the cheeky tone in his voice. Sure enough, he saw a smirk adorning his face, and only then he realized the implications of what he had just said. “Am I also so cute you can’t resist me?”

Kyungsoo tried his best to keep his cool and he forced himself to roll his eyes, though he wanted the earth to swallow him whole just in case he gave away that _yes_ , he did think Jongin was too cute to resist. “No, idiot. He’s just as sleepy as you are, but he’s also just as eager about food as you are. That's what I meant.”

“He’s not as excited about the food I feed him at home, though. I mean, he is excited, just not as excited. He’s only this excited about your food.” Jongin pointed out, reaching with his chopstick-free hand to pet the top of Monggu’s head after the dog had swallowed what Kyungsoo had fed him and stood up to press its paws against Jongin’s leg again.

“That kind of sounds like you as well, you know,” Kyungsoo said, and he shot Jongin a small smirk. The younger just smiled and rolled his eyes. “But, hey, don’t worry. After a couple of days you’ll be able to make delicious food at home for you and Sehun. You won’t need me to cook for you anymore.”

Jongin’s lower lip jutted out in a small pout. “But I like your cooking.”

Kyungsoo chuckled as he poked at a badly julienned carrot in his bowl. He tried to make his voice sound as casual as possible even if the issue he was about to mention was a pretty touchy subject for him. He didn’t even know why he was bringing it up when just one day ago they had ended up arguing about it, but he couldn’t help but press on it. “But, Jongin, you can’t spend every day coming here. Especially not now that you got yourself a boyfriend.”

It’s not like it wasn’t a legitimate concern; Jongin had spent pretty much every single day with him for the last few months, and if he started dating Taemin then those evening hangouts would definitely have to stop.

Kyungsoo saw the younger boy shrug simply. “Taemin’s not my boyfriend.”

“But he asked you out”, Kyungsoo started and Jongin nodded. “And you said yes.”

The younger nodded once again, but he turned his head to look at Kyungsoo, propping his elbow in the counter to hold his head up. He seemed way more calm about the entire subject than he had been the night before. “I did.”

“So you like him. Right?” It was more of a statement than a question. Kyungsoo saw how Jongin shrugged and bit on his lower lip, looking down at the surface of the counter. He looked troubled and Kyungsoo thought that maybe he had pushed too far. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s just…” Jongin started, but he hesitated before continuing, sighing and running a hand through his hair. “It’s just that I didn’t really say yes to him at first. Yesterday, when he asked me that, I actually told him if I could give him an answer today. So… Yesterday, when I told you that, I hadn’t really given him an answer.” Kyungsoo listened to Jongin attentively, his brow furrowed. “I wasn’t sure about going out with him in first place. I’m still not sure, to be honest, but it doesn’t matter anymore because I told him today that I did want to go out with him and, well… I guess I’ll see how that goes, but let’s just say I’m not so thrilled about it. I don't like him that way. So, to sum things up, no, he’s not my boyfriend, and I don’t think he’ll ever be my boyfriend even if we are going out on Friday.”

Kyungsoo stared at Jongin for a moment, while he processed what he had just told him. “But why didn’t you tell me all this in first place, Jongin?”

Jongin’s cheeks were starting to warm up enough for Kyungsoo to see, and the younger kept his eyes trained on the surface of the counter, probably to avoid Kyungsoo’s own eyes. “I don’t know, I… I suppose I wanted to see how you’d react if I told you that because I was pretty sure that if I told you I hadn’t given him an answer yet you would tell me to go for it and say yes. But I didn’t want that.”

“What _did_ you want, then?” He asked, though he kept his voice soft. It was the kind of softness that gave away that he probably didn’t really need an answer to his question. He could see where Jongin was going with all of this, so he swallowed hard to try and get rid of the lump of nerves that was beginning to appear his throat.

“I wanted... I wanted you to give me a reason to tell him no.” Jongin finally looked up from the table and at Kyungsoo. The chef was looking straight at Jongin, and although it had been easier to keep his eyes on him when the younger wasn’t looking back, he didn’t look away. There was a heavy implication in his words; one Kyungsoo picked up on right away.

Kyungsoo felt like his breath had caught in his throat, but even though he was nervous, heartbeat pounding in his chest and behind his ears, he also felt a warm, fluttering feeling in his gut that spread through the rest of his body. He felt more confident, all of a sudden, and he placed his hand on the table, purposely close to Jongin’s, though not close enough that they would touch yet.

“Jongin…” The younger was looking straight at him, but Kyungsoo didn’t miss the way he moved his hand closer to his because his skin tingled under the touch. He took a deep breath. “You know doing all that was pretty dumb of you, don’t you?” His voice was surprisingly light despite how nervous he felt, and the smile on his face matched his good-natured tone.

The younger’s lips curved into a small, sheepish smile. “You’d be surprised of how dumb I can get sometimes.”

Kyungsoo hummed, and in a sudden rush of confidence, he moved his hand to place it right on top of Jongin’s on the table. During the past months they had shared similar touches, though they had never been as deliberate. Sometimes it had been a lingering hand on his after they had accidentally found each other’s, or Jongin leaning his sleepy head on his shoulder during a particularly tedious episode of Inuyasha, but none of those touches had lasted long enough, and Kyungsoo had always told himself to not look too much into them. He had really thought his crush on Jongin was as one sided as it could get.

Jongin’s hand was larger than his despite the fact that he was seven years younger. ( _Seven years_ ; that was the thing that had him stopping himself whenever he started thinking about Jongin as more than a neighbor and a friend, but his tiny crush had grown fast and uncontrollably.)

He looked straight into Jongin’s eyes despite the fact that he was so nervous he thought his heart would beat out of his chest.

“I like you, Jongin. I have for a while.” He felt Jongin turning his hand around beneath his own and then softly dragging his fingers against his own. It was a nearly magical feeling, one that had him thinking he would have confessed ages ago if he had known Jongin would touch him like this.

“You should’ve said something sooner, hyung.” Jongin’s voice was slightly shaky, and he gave him a shy smile that wasn’t less dazzling than any of his other, non-bashful smiles. “I like you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took my a while to write this because I got a bad writer's block, but now the chapter's up! The second part of this same chapter won't be long, by the way. Hope you liked it, and if you left a comment you would make me the happiest person in the world <3 Thank you for reading!


	9. Confessions II

It could have been awkward. Perhaps it _was_ awkward, but Kyungsoo felt nothing other than relief and happiness, any other emotion drowned in the thrill of hearing Jongin saying that he, too, liked him. 

Kyungsoo couldn’t remember the last time he felt like that: nervous, excited, unsure of what to do. While he had never been what one could consider a loud and outgoing person and he had always tended to keep to himself, he wasn’t shy either. He had never been this wary with Chanyeol, and letting go had been as easy as breathing with him –but then again, Chanyeol and he had been the same age and they were both young when they got together. 

Jongin was younger than he had been when he had even started dating Chanyeol back in college. Kyungsoo preferred not to think about how just seven years ago he was already in college while Jongin was still a twelve-year old boy living in Suncheon. As mature his neighbor was for his age and regardless of how his height made him look older than he actually was, Kyungsoo always tried to keep in mind that he was still a teenager.

But now he knew that Jongin liked him back.

The younger’s hand was warm, his fingers slotted between his own, and Kyungsoo felt brave enough to let his thumb stroke small circles on bronzed skin.

“Since when?” Kyungsoo asked, unable to help himself. He himself didn’t have an answer for that question –he wouldn’t have been able to point out the exact moment he fell for the younger dancer, and the more he looked back, the more it felt like he had never _not_ liked him.

Jongin hummed, thoughtfully, his own fingers stroking Kyungsoo’s timidly. “I think… I think it was after that whole thing with Chanyeol-ssi happened.” Kyungsoo’s eyebrows lifted in surprise; it had been a long time since then, and he couldn’t imagine Jongin had been struggling with the same weight on his shoulders he at the same time as himself. “I always thought you thought of me as just a _dongsaeng_ though,” the younger continued, “because there was no way someone like you could be interested in a kid like me. You have everything figured out while I’m just starting college; you have you own house and a great job while my parents and Sehun’s pay for our rent; you make the most amazing and delicious food I have ever eaten while I just learned how to chop onions _today_ …”

Kyungsoo squeezed Jongin’s hand and he took his free hand to the younger’s forearm. “But, hey, I _am_ interested in you.” He gave his neighbor a warm smile, feeling his own nervousness beginning to slowly fade away. “I have liked you for a while. You’re young, it’s true, but you’re also quite mature. In your own way,” he added, and Jongin gave him a small smile. “And we _sliced_ the onions. We didn’t chop them.”

Jongin smiled and rolled his eyes, his nose wrinkling. “It’s the same thing!”

The elder shook his head, laughing softly, and he slightly turned on his seat without letting go of Jongin’s hand to run his free hand through his neighbor’s brown hair. “Not at all.”

Kyungsoo had been careful when it came to skinship, and this was his first time touching Jongin like this. It felt nice, and the warm sensation that spread through his body was a soothing one, a _right_ one; one he wished to feel again and again.

Jongin smiled even if his breath hitched at the gesture, and he eyed at the bowls of food before them before looking back at Kyungsoo, his expression becoming a tad more playful. “I think I’ll need more classes to learn the difference, then.”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes even though he couldn’t erase the smile from his face.

 

After coming to the conclusion that neither of them could eat anymore, they put their leftovers in the plastic container they had reserved for Jongin to take home for Sehun and himself. 

(Another thing that had happened since Jongin had come into his life was that the amount of tupperwares with leftover food he had in the refrigerator had disappeared. He wasn’t very fond of reheated food, so there was always a large amount of food in his fridge that he ended up throwing away even if there was nothing he hated more in the world than throwing food away. Since he had Jongin (and Sehun) to eat his leftovers he didn’t have that problem anymore).

Kyungsoo washed the dishes while Jongin dried them so they could put them away immediately, all trace of awkwardness completely gone as they joked around and talked like they had for months, but with a difference. Their hands lingered against each other’s for moments too long whenever Kyungsoo handed Jongin a new clean dish (even if Jongin complained about how Kyungsoo’s fingers were wet), and Jongin leaned his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder despite their considerable height difference when he got bored. He even nuzzled the chef’s shoulder, and Kyungsoo didn’t ask him to stop this time.

“There”, Kyungsoo said as he turned off the tap and he dried his hands on his apron. “All done.”

Jongin did a small sound of victory as he put the rag he had used to dry the dishes on the empty drying rack. He didn’t move away from Kyungsoo, though. 

“Hey…” Kyungsoo started before the silence could stretch for too long, “so you’re going to go out with Taemin on Friday, right?”

The younger hummed, pulling away from Kyungsoo’s side (which was regrettable, in Kyungsoo’s opinion), and turning around so he could lean against the counter and face Kyungsoo instead. Their hands found each other’s naturally, which made up for the warmth Jongin gave Kyungsoo when he was leaning against his side. “If it bothers you I can invent an excuse so I don’t have to go. Or I can tell him that I want it to be as just friends. But, honestly…” Jongin’s lips curved into a little playful smile, “I would prefer to stay here with you.”

Kyungsoo snorted, and he tugged at Jongin’s fingers. “It doesn’t bother me that you go out with him. In fact, you probably should – I wouldn’t want you to lose your new friends because you spend more time here with me. If you tell him that you want to go just as friends, he will surely understand, right…?” 

Jongin nodded, “I hope so. He’s cool, he’s a good friend.” He pouted at Kyungsoo then. “But I do want to spend time with you. I like this; coming here, watching anime, eating… I don’t want it to change; I don’t want it to be different just because you and I are…”

“Dating?” Kyungsoo asked, his voice soft. He hadn’t had time to think about the technicalities of it all, nor of how things were most likely going to change between them, but the word seemed natural, only if a little too heavy, too charged; perhaps, it was a little too early.

“Yeah?” Jongin bit on his lower lip a little bit. “If that’s okay…? I just… I like you, and I want to be with you, hyung.”

Kyungsoo’s heart skipped a bit at Jongin’s words, and he took a step closer to Jongin to touch his cheek with his palm, softly at first. Jongin leaned into the touch, which made Kyungsoo smile. “That’s what I want too. But let’s take it slow at first, okay? I think it’s better if we don’t jump into anything straight away…”

Jongin didn’t seem to excited about the prospect of taking things slow, but Kyungsoo interrupted him from saying whatever he was about to say by standing on his tiptoes and pressing a kiss to the younger’s cheek.

“I want to be with you too, Jongin. Let’s just not rush,” he said as he pulled away. “Okay?”

Jongin nodded, a smile growing in his lips. “Okay.”

◇ ◇ ◇

When they saw each other the following Saturday, after Kyungsoo’s shift at the hotel, Jongin told Kyungsoo all about the just-as-friends date he had with Taemin. His classmate understood when he told him that he liked somebody else and the two had a great time at a billiards place close to campus and agreed to do it some time again soon, also with Sehun and Zitao.

Kyungsoo kept on teaching Jongin how to cook, and while it became clear that cooking would never be a strong point of Jongin’s by Sunday, the younger did seem to learn how to use the rice cooker and how to make fried chicken (though Kyungsoo only taught him because Jongin begged him to).

That night, when Kyungsoo walked Jongin and Monggu to the door, a tupperware full of fried chicken under Jongin’s arm, they kissed for the first time.

Kyungsoo couldn’t really remember who initiated it, but it didn’t matter. The moment he felt Jongin’s soft lips against his own he felt like his heart could burst right then and there, and he couldn’t stop himself from kissing the dancer the way he had wanted to for weeks. At first it was soft, gentle, and a bit nervous, but when Kyungsoo cupped Jongin’s cheeks with his hands and pulled him closer to himself all the shyness melted away. It was still gentle, but also slow and deep; probably too deep for a first kiss considering the way one of Kyungsoo’s hands was buried in Jongin’s hair, keeping him as close as possible, and Jongin’s free arm wrapped tightly around Kyungsoo’s waist, his hand on the small of his back. 

Kyungsoo didn’t care. When they pulled away, both of them breathless, panting against each other’s mouths, Jongin smiled and it was beyond perfect. The smell and taste of chicken was in the air, in Jongin’s tongue, and probably in his own tongue as well, but Kyungsoo couldn’t think of a more perfect kiss. Jongin kissed him on the cheek before he pulled away, his smile blinding and beautiful.

“See you, hyung.”

“Good night, Jongin-ah.”

As if a dam had been broken with that first kiss, making out became a part of their usual activities every time Jongin went to Kyungsoo’s apartment. It didn’t matter if they were cooking dinner together, or if they were waiting for the sushi they had ordered to arrive, or if they were in the middle of watching anime, they always managed to sneak a few kisses here and there, most of which ended with Kyungsoo’s hands slipped under Jongin’s shirt and Jongin’s fingers buried in Kyungsoo’s black hair.

◇ ◇ ◇

One night when Kyungsoo went out with his friends to their usual bar and he wasn’t able to get together with Jongin he came to the realization that he wanted to be with him. 

Truly _be_ with him.

He saw the way Baekhyun leaned against Yifan and nuzzled his shoulder (because Yifan had finally gotten back from Guangzhou and there was nothing that could keep Baekhyun away from his boyfriend after months of separation), the way Lu Hua and Minseok held hands over the table and occasionally whispered to each other, and the way Minho kissed Junmyeon hello when he picked him up at the bar later that night, and he thought that he wanted to do all that with Jongin, and he didn’t want to keep it behind the closed door of his apartment.

He wanted to include Jongin in his life and his friends were an important part of it.

“Oh, so that explains why you’ve been so hard to reach the last couple months! Well, I mean — _harder_ to reach than before,” Jongdae said with a smirk. “You met someone! That’s awesome! How did you meet him?”

“He’s my neighbor, actually.” Kyungsoo said, smiling unconsciously at the thought of Jongin. Yixing cooed next to him and tried to pinch his cheek, but Kyungsoo swatted his hand away. “He moved across the hall with a friend of his and his dog a few months ago.”

“Really? He sounds cute!” Lu Hua grinned excitedly. “What’s his name? What does he do? Is he handsome?”

“His name’s Jongin, and uh… He’s a student, actually.” Kyungsoo said, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible. He was nervous about revealing this, but he didn’t think there was anything they could say that could change what he felt for Jongin. Chanyeol was there too, this time back to his usual self, and he seemed really interested in what Kyungsoo was saying. “He’s nineteen years old. And he’s a dance student.”

“He’s… He’s nineteen years old?” Junmyeon asked, his eyes wide in surprise, though he regained his composure soon enough, clearing his throat. “Well, that’s… Different.”

“I didn’t know you were into younger guys, Soo-yah,” Baekhyun interrupted Junmyeon, his voice playful but an honest smile on his face.

“I’m not necessarily into younger guys; I’m into him, period. And you know, I like him a lot.” Kyungsoo retorted defensively, though he knew Baekhyun was just playing. The other man chuckled. 

“That’s all that matters, then. That’s cool, Soo, really. I’m happy for you,” his smile turned more mischievous as he added, “and you know what they say about dancers—” 

“—hey, isn’t that the guy that was at your door the other day when I was at your house? The one that bought you Gatorade?” Chanyeol asked, energetically. The others already knew what had happened that night so nobody questioned why Chanyeol was at Kyungsoo’s house, which was a relief for Kyungsoo since he wouldn’t need to give twice as many explanations as he had initially planned on giving that night.

“Yeah, that was him”, Kyungsoo nodded.

“Wow… He didn’t look nineteen at all. He’s tall, and really handsome, too! I mean, not more handsome than me, but still pretty handsome.” Chanyeol commented with a big warm smile he directed just for Kyungsoo, and the chef rolled his eyes but he couldn’t help but smile.

“Really? Oh! Do you have pictures? Show us a picture of him!” Lu Hua demanded eagerly, and everybody wanted to see. Kyungsoo told them about how they had met and about how the past months they had spent pretty much every evening together cooking, eating, talking, and watching Inuyasha until ungodly hours. In the end everybody seemed to warm up to the idea, all of them probably agreeing that as long as Kyungsoo and Jongin were happy, age wasn’t too important.

“At least he’s legal, right?” Jongdae commented playfully, and Kyungsoo smacked him on the back of his head.

It wasn’t like Kyungsoo needed his friends’ approval before getting into a relationship but he _wanted_ to let them know who Jongin was and who Jongin was to him if he was planning on, eventually bringing Jongin with him during one of these get-togethers as his boyfriend.

◇ ◇ ◇

Kyungsoo only realized he had never been to Jongin’s and Sehun’s apartment before when the younger called him a couple of days later when he was on the train home from work. He asked him if he could come over to his place instead because—

“—I just think it’s not fair to you that I’m always the one that crashes at your place... So… What do you say? Do you want to come to my place instead?”

Obviously, he said yes. He was more than a little intrigued to see what Jongin’s and Sehun’s apartment looked like (even if he could guess that it was most likely a mess), and it was true that most of their time together they spent it at his own apartment. A little change would be nice.

Monggu started barking inside of the apartment as soon as Kyungsoo knocked on the door. He was wondering whether Jongin and he would cook together or if they would order take-out instead when he heard Jongin shushing Monggu on the other side of the door and walking towards the front door. When he opened it, Kyungsoo was greeted by the tasty smell of kimchi and by a smiley Jongin wearing a cooking apron (it had Captain America’s muscly torso on it and Kyungsoo couldn’t help but snort and laugh in the younger’s face at the sight of it, which distracted him from the smell).

“Don’t laugh! It’s cool!” Jongin said as Kyungsoo stepped inside and he closed the door behind him. Kyungsoo only stopped laughing when Jongin kissed him for longer than their normal greeting kisses, one of his hands on the elder’s cheek. Monggu didn’t stop sniffing at Kyungsoo’s feet and pants while he was kissing Jongin, wagging its tail in excitement.

Jongin’s hand smelled of pepper, though, and Kyungsoo pulled away from him, breaking the kiss, suddenly reminded of how it smelled of food. _Tasty_ food.

“You cooked. What did you cook?” Kyungsoo asked, sniffing the air and trying to place all the different scents together. “It doesn’t smell like anything I’ve taught you before.”

Jongin offered Kyungsoo a pair of spare house slippers after the chef finished taking off his shoes and his jacket, a smug smile on his face. “Nope; it’s not something you’ve taught me yet.”

Kyungsoo put on the slippers with a smile, though his brow was furrowed with disbelief. “Wait, so you made it all by yourself? Did someone help you? It smells really good…!”

“Just come, hyung, stop making questions!” Jongin burst, impatient but good-naturedly. Kyungsoo followed Jongin into his apartment, which was a mirror of his own, and he was pleasantly surprised when he saw that it wasn’t nearly as messy as he had imagined it to be. Kyungsoo saw Jongin and Sehun also had a pretty good TV set themselves, as well as a bunch of different gaming consoles beneath it, and while the couch was clearly quite old it still looked pretty decent. He didn’t doubt for a second that Jongin had probably spent some time cleaning up because the younger had told him before that both Sehun and he were kind of slobby and lazy when it came to house chores. He smiled at the thought that Jongin had gone through the bother of cleaning because he had planned on inviting him.

There was a small table with four chairs on the dining room, and he gasped when he saw the table was already served for two; nothing fancy, just bowls and dishes for the two of them, chopsticks, and spoons. Between the two seats was a pot with steaming _kimchi jjigae_ —ideal for the less-than-warm nights of late October— that was the source of the delicious smell.

Kyungsoo turned to look at Jongin with his mouth opened in surprise. His heart was beating fast in his chest and he felt like somebody had let loose a horde of giant butterflies inside of his guts. “Wow, Jongin—! How did you…? I mean, it looks amazing, and it smells great, but why…?”

Jongin interrupted him, an excited yet shy smile on his lips. “I just wanted to do something nice for you for a change… You let me and Monggu stay at your place all the time, you’ve cooked for us for months, and you’ve been ridiculously nice and cool since the first day we met, and I thought it was about time I did something in return… I have to admit that my noona helped me over the phone, and I don’t think it will be impressive to you since you make stuff like this every single day, but I really wanted to do this for you, so… Surprise.” He finished with a grin and a sing-song voice, and Kyungsoo felt like he could melt.

He couldn’t of anything as sweet and thoughtful anyone had ever done for him before, and he wrapped his arms around Jongin’s neck to bring him down for a kiss. He didn’t know how else to tell Jongin how happy he was and how happy he made him; how he really didn’t owe him anything because he enjoyed Jongin being there and he _wanted_ Jongin to be there; how he thought about Jongin when he was at work and when he was at the store and when he was on the train, how he started missing Jongin the second he left his apartment every night, how he had learnt so much about him but also about himself with their countless late night conversations, how he thought about introducing him to his friends and maybe someday to his family, how he thought about kissing him and touching him all over almost every night before falling asleep, how everything had changed and nothing in his life had ever been the same since he had moved in to the apartment on the other side of the hallway anymore because—

“—I love you, Jongin”, he breathed against the younger’s lips once he pulled away, his heart and his entire body pulsating with the intensity of the emotion. It had been a couple of weeks since they had first told each other they liked each other, and they had made a promise to go slow, but going slow seemed like a pointless, stupid thing when he knew for sure he couldn’t be without Jongin.

Jongin brought a hand to Kyungsoo’s face and he stroke his cheek with his thumb, his eyes intense even under his forever-sleepy eyelids. “You do?” His eyes went from one of Kyungsoo’s eyes to the other, almost searching for something, “for real?”

Kyungsoo couldn’t help but chuckle, though it was a little shaky, adrenaline coursing through his body. “Yeah, for real.”

“I, too,” Jongin said, and he smiled shyly, though it was no less dazzling. “I love you, too. I really do…” 

Kyungsoo returned the smile, a soft sigh leaving his lips as he moved his hand to ran it through Jongin’s hair, gently threading his fingers through it. “There’s no point in taking things slow now, is it?”

“I guess not,” Jongin said, laughing softly. “God, if I had known this was all it took I would’ve made you dinner way sooner.”

“It’s not just dinner, idiot,” the elder said, softly hitting Jongin’s chest with his fist with no real malice. “It’s everything.”

◇ ◇ ◇

Thinking back to the day when Jongin moved into the old building, Kyungsoo vaguely remembered that he had been preparing the same meal Jongin made for him, _kimchi jjigae_ , the moment he heard the loud clanking of pans and pots hitting the floor of the building hallway —pans and pots that had probably been used no more than a couple of times in the last few months. Maybe they hadn’t been used at all until that day.

He was still the same man he was back then, months later.

He still had his own apartment in the third floor of a nice even if a little old building, he still had a job where he got to do what he enjoyed the most, and he still made enough money with his job that he was thinking about saving to maybe open up his own restaurant someday. His best friend Junmyeon had once said that the only thing he lacked was a person he could share all his achievements with; “somebody he could cook for”, had been his words, and Kyungsoo had retorted telling him he watched too many dramas. 

Jongin came into his life with the loud metallic sound of pans and pots banging against the floor, with a broken lock and forgotten keys, with a well-behaved brown poodle, anime marathons, long late night conversations, and the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. He hadn’t been the kind of person he had expected to show up in his life and he hadn’t turned his world inside out like it happens in dramas.

It was better; it was _real_. 

Jongin had shaken up and messed up his world, giving everything a new meaning and a new direction, but Kyungsoo was not afraid of the unexpected anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end! ;_; If you made it this far I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for putting up with this story; I started writing it on a whim and I didn't imagine for a second that it would turn into a chaptered fic of almost 30k words. I enjoyed every second of writing this, and I kind of fell in love with this AU (which, in my head, is warm like the summer and smells of delicious food).   
> I tried to be as careful and meticulous as possible with things like the preparation of meals to make things as accurate and realistic as possible, but if I made a mistake I apologize!  
> I really hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing; I really appreciate and reply to every comment, so if you could let me know what your thoughts are -if you like it, if you didn't like it, if you think I need to work more on this or the other- I would be really thankful!  
> Lots of love ♥♥

**Author's Note:**

> Find me in Tumblr @Chlexcer and @chlexcer-writes!!  
> Thank you so much for reading!!! ❤️❤️❤️


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